Vanity Fair - Page 36/573

"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. "Hold

out your hand, you little beast."

"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," Dobbin

said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and little

Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and incredulity at

seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while

Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy our late monarch George

III when he heard of the revolt of the North American colonies: fancy

brazen Goliath when little David stepped forward and claimed a meeting;

and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was

proposed to him.

"After school," says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as much

as to say, "Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to your

friends between this time and that."

"As you please," Dobbin said. "You must be my bottle holder, Osborne."

"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his papa kept

a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.

Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "Go

it, Figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry for

the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the

commencement of which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on

his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his

blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times

running. At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to

have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee.

"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought,

picking up his man. "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's

only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it." But Figs, all

whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage,

put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.

As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were aimed

at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding

occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now

determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on his own

part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into

action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might--once at Mr.

Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. "Well

hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a connoisseur,

clapping his man on the back. "Give it him with the left, Figs my boy."