CHAMPIONS I HAVE KNOAVN 253 



presence. He would have taken Mr Hall Caine up with 

 one hand and shaken him as a terrier shakes a rat. 



Bendigo, before the revivalists got hold of him, and even 

 after that during his periodical lapses from grace, was 

 capital company, full of quaint lore, an enthusiastic 

 gardener, too, and one of the best fishermen that even 

 Nottingham, famed for its anglers since Izaak Walton's 

 days, ever produced. 



Jem Ward, whom I was proud to call a friend, was an 

 artist and musician as well as pugilist, and could make 

 himself at home in the society of ladies, which is more 

 than I can say for any other prize-fighter I have known. 



Tom King, the conqueror of Heenan, was in his later 

 days a model of respectability. Roses were his hobby. He 

 would yarn about them by the hour — not even Dean Hole 

 himself was a greater enthusiast. I used to meet him 

 frequently at the Crystal Palace Rose Show, and it was 

 hard to imagine that the tall, grey-bearded gentleman in 

 silk hat, frock-coat, and straw-coloured gloves was the 

 magnificent athlete whom I saw stripped to fight the 

 gigantic and herculean Heenan. Tom would talk freely 

 about roses, but if you attempted to draw him on the 

 Prize Ring he dried up at once. And yet it was his 

 victory over the Benicia Boy and the winning of that 

 ;^2000 prize that gave him the means of starting as a 

 bookmaker and making the handsome fortune which he 

 subsequently amassed. He died worth upwards of 

 ;^50,ooo. 



Tom Sayers, outside his profession, was not a very 

 interesting person. He could neither read nor write, and 

 his information about things in general was ludicrously 

 defective. Yet no one who studied Tom's face, as I have 

 done, whilst one of his pals was reading to him an account 

 of a prize-fight from BeWs Life, could doubt that he had 

 plenty of intelligence. To see him in the ring was to 

 realise that the man was a genius in his line. His coolness, 

 the quickness with which he seized an opportunity, his 

 instinctive knowledge of the right thing to do at the right 

 moment, his strategy, his perfect control — all these qualities 

 showed a brain directing the motions of the body. 



