“Hold off, Cuff; don’t bully that child any more; or I’ll – ”

“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 at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while Cuff’s astonishment was scarcely less.

“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.

When the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, “Go it, Figs”; and not a single other boy in the place cried that for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat.

Figs’s left hand made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out, “Go it, Figs,” as there were youths exclaiming, “Go it, Cuff.” At the twelfth round the latter champion had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or defence. Figs, on the contrary, was calm. And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made you think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar.

Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, “It’s my fault, sir – not Figs’ – not Dobbin’s. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right.” By which speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him.[10]

In consequence of Dobbin’s victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs became as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. “After all, it’s not his fault that his father’s a grocer,” George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth. “Old Figs” grew to be a name of kindness and endearment.

And Dobbin’s spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he chose to attribute his good fortune to George Osborne, to whom he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children. He flung himself down at little Osborne’s feet, and loved him. He believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created boys. He shared his money with him.

So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, “Mrs. Sedley, Ma’am, I hope you have room; I’ve asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. He’s almost as modest as Jos.”

That evening, when Amelia came into the drawing room as fresh as a rose – a very tall gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows. This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty’s Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies.