The pugilist had been at least a fine
figure of a bully and a braggart when I saw him before his fight;
now he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his
head, and made-up tie under one ear. His companions were his sallow
little Yankee secretary, whose name I really forget, but whom I met
with Maguire at the Boxing Club, and a very grand person in a second
skin of shimmering sequins.
I can neither forget nor report the terms in which Barney Maguire
asked me who I was and what I was doing there. Thanks, however, to
Swigger Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of our former
meeting, and of more that I only recalled as the words were in my
mouth.
"You'll remember Raffles," said I, "if you don't remember me. You
showed us your trophies the other night, and asked us both to look
you up at any hour of the day or night after the fight."
I was going on to add that I had expected to find Raffles there
before me, to settle a wager that we had made about the man-trap.
But the indiscretion was interrupted by Maguire himself, whose
dreadful fist became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor,
while with the other he clouted me on the back.
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