CHAPTER V--THE FIGHT:.
"Surgebat Macnevisius Et mox jactabat ultro, Pugnabo tua gratia Feroci hoc Mactwoltro."-- Etonian.
There is a certain sort of fellow--we who are used to studying boys all know him well enough--of whom you can predicate with almost positive certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one.

Tom Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give a full, true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a school-fellow in the manner of our old friend Bell's Life, let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which God has given us all an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste.
It was not at all usual in those days for two School-house boys to have a fight.

Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was quarrelling with his nearest neighbours, or when there was some class-dispute, between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly, who settled the matter by a good hearty mill.

But, for the most part, the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing-gloves, kept the School-house boys from fighting one another.

Two or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbours' prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy in the house.