“No. It’s off. It’s nowt.”

“Stand oop, lad; let’s see thee standin’.” It was the publican who spoke.

Montgomery obeyed. He would learn all about it, no doubt, if he were patient. He stood up and turned slowly round, as if in front of his tailor.

“It’s off! It’s off!” cried the horsebreaker. “Why, mon, the Master would break him over his knee.”

“Oh, that be hanged for a yarn!” said the young Cantab. “You can drop out if you like, Fawcett, but I’ll see this thing through, if I have to do it alone. I don’t hedge a penny. I like the cut of him a great deal better than I liked Ted Barton.”

“Look at Barton’s shoulders, Mr. Wilson.”

“Lumpiness isn’t always strength. Give me nerve and fire and breed. That’s what wins.”

“Ay, sir, you have it theer—you have it theer!” said the fat, red-faced publican, in a thick, suety voice. “It’s the same wi’ poops. Get ‘em clean-bred an’ fine, an’ they’ll yark the thick ‘uns—yark ‘em out o’ their skins.”

“He’s ten good pund on the light side,” growled the horsebreaker.

“He’s a welter weight, anyhow.”

“A hundred and thirty.”

“A hundred and fifty, if he’s an ounce.”

“Well, the Master doesn’t scale much more than that.”

“A hundred and seventy-five.”

“That was when he was hog-fat and living high. Work the grease out of him, and I lay there’s no great difference between them. Have you been weighed lately, Mr. Montgomery?”

It was the first direct question which had been asked him. He had stood in the midst of them, like a horse at a fair, and he was just beginning to wonder whether he was more angry or amused.

“I am just eleven stone,” said he.

“I said that he was a welter weight.”

“But suppose you was trained?” said the publican. “Wot then?”

“I am always in training.”

“In a manner of speakin’, no doubt, he is always in trainin’,” remarked the horsebreaker. “But trainin’ for everyday work ain’t the same as trainin’ with a trainer; and I dare bet, with all respec’ to your opinion, Mr. Wilson, that there’s half a stone of tallow on him at this minute.”

The young Cantab put his fingers on the assistant’s upper arm. Then with his other hand on his wrist he bent the forearm sharply, and felt the biceps, as round and hard as a cricket-ball, spring up under his fingers.

“Feel that!” said he.

The publican and horsebreaker felt it with an air of reverence.

“Good lad! He’ll do yet!” cried Purvis.

“Gentlemen,” said Montgomery, “I think that you will acknowledge that I have been very patient with you. I have listened to all that you have to say about my personal appearance, and now I must really beg that you will have the goodness to tell me what is the matter.”

They all sat down in their serious, business-like way.

“That’s easy done, Mr. Montgomery,” said the fat-voiced publican. “But before sayin’ anything we had to wait and see whether, in a way of speakin’, there was any need for us to say anything at all. Mr. Wilson thinks there is. Mr. Fawcett, who has the same right to his opinion, bein’ also a backer and one o’ the committee, thinks the other way.”

“I thought him too light built, and I think so now,” said the horsebreaker, still tapping his prominent teeth with the metal head of his riding-whip. “But happen he may pull through; and he’s a fine-made, buirdly young chap, so if you mean to back him, Mr.