he world's a chessboard,
    And we the merest pawns in fist of Fate.
    [_Aloud._] And now, my friends, gentle and simple both,
    Our scene draws to a close. In lawful course
    As Dorset's deputy lieutenant I
    Do pardon all concerned this afternoon
    In the late gross and brutal exhibition
    Of miscalled sport.

    LYDIA [_throwing herself into his arms_]. Your boats
    are burnt at last.

    CASHEL. This is the face that burnt a thousand boats,
    And ravished Cashel Byron from the ring.
    But to conclude. Let William Paradise
    Devote himself to science, and acquire,
    By studying the player's speech in Hamlet,
    A more refined address. You, Robert Mellish,
    To the Blue Anchor hostelry attend him;
    Assuage his hurts, and bid Bill Richardson
    Limit his access to the fatal tap.
    Now mount we on my backer's four-in-hand,
    And to St. George's Church, whose portico
    Hanover Square shuts off from Conduit Street,
    Repair we all. Strike up the wedding march;
    And, Mellish, let thy melodies trill forth
    Broad o'er the wold as fast we bowl along.
    Give me the post-horn. Loose the flowing rein;
    And up to London drive with might and main.      [_Exeunt._




NOTE ON MODERN PRIZEFIGHTING


In 1882, when this book was written, prizefighting seemed to be dying
out. Sparring matches with boxing gloves, under the Queensberry rules,
kept pugilism faintly alive; but it was not popular, because the public,
which cares only for the excitement of a strenuous fight, believed then
that the boxing glove made sparring as harmless a contest of pure skill
as a fencing match with buttoned foils. This delusion was supported by
the limitation of the sparring match to boxing. In the prize-ring under
the old rules a combatant might trip, hold, or throw his antagonist; so
that each round finished either with a knockdown blow, which, except
when it is really a liedown blow, is much commoner in fiction than it
was in the ring, or with a visible body-to-body struggle ending in a
fall. In a