Watch the rivalry and sparring that go on in any business.

Having declined to follow the remains himself, he stood looking from the hall door at the procession, till the whole had moved away; and then, turning to one of the servants, the only person left, he desired him to fetch the sparring-gloves, and proceeded with him to his usual exercise.

Then you'll want a sparring partner.

Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a deal of sparring and jarring between them.

Civilization means the uplifting of man, doesn't it, and when it ceases to uplift when it kills, robs, and disrupts in the name of progress; when the dollar-fight for commercial and industrial supremacy kills more people in a day than God's first people killed in a year; when not only people, but nations, are sparring for throat-grips, can we call it civilization any longer?

At Ravenshoe, Charles and Mackworth seldom met without a "sparring match," for to the priest it was intolerable that this house should, in the event of Cuthbert dying childless, pass into Protestant hands.

There was no great question to move or carryit was an affair of political sparring between himself and the other candidates.

It was, I believe, at that remarkable wager, when, the men being so equally matched and accomplished, they had been sparring for three-quarters of an hour before a blow had been struck.

Every morning (the morning begins here at twelve, meridian) the Senate chamber is thronged with ladies and feathers, and their obsequious satellites, to hear the sparring.

Father delighteth in sparring with Patteson far more than in jesting with the king, whom he alwaies looks on as a lion that may, any minute, rend him.

Mr. Siddons, the husband of the celebrated actress, was born in Rushall-street, in this town, whilst his father kept a public-house, known by the sign of the London apprentice, whose death was occasioned by sparring or wrestling with a person named Denston.

"Don't you see he is only sparring to gain time?"

Very bashful with ladies, and for ever sparring with Bisarre, who teazes him unmercifully [Dure-tait, Be-zar'].G. Farquhar, The Inconstant (1702).

After a little sparring he admitted the fact, and I went home and proudly told my sister and brother how my genius had turned out a greater one than I expected.

" He laughed uneasily, sparring for wind.

It was of no use for Wilbur to explain to her that his new hero chose this humble avocation because it afforded him leisure for training between his fights; that he didn't drink or smoke, but kept himself in good condition; that it was a fine chance to learn how to box, because Spike needed sparring partners.

A simple and pathetic memoirwhich deserved to be as successful as that most felicitous of all such hoaxes, the life of the supposed Italian poet, Lorenzo Stecchettiintroduces us to the unfortunate young Irishman, who was innocently engaged to a charming lady, when, on a certain August afternoon, he strayed by chance into the Fives Court, witnessed a "sparring-exhibition" by two celebrated pugilists, and was thenceforth a lost character.

Those rake-hell counsellors were laughing, and bantering, and sparring after their wont.

" "What do you mean?" "Ratty Beslow; my owd colleague an' sparring pardner.

However, one of the Sophomores, a very quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the crowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, sparring away, struck him with the sole of his foot, a straight blow, as if it had been with his fist,and knocked him heels over head and senseless, so that he had to be carried off from the field.

He seized it, but vain was the sparring skill that had won at the willow pond.

Tom inquired, sparring for wind as it were.

Add to this the constitutional American receptiveness, which welcomes new pursuits without distinction of origin,unites German gymnastics with English sports and sparring, and takes the red Indians for instructors in paddling and running.

No doubt, a laudable aversion prevails, in this country, to the English practices of pugilism; yet it must be remembered that sparring is, by its very name, a "science of self-defence"; and if a gentleman wishes to know how to hold a rude antagonist at bay, in any emergency, and keep out of an undignified scuffle, the means are most easily afforded him by the art, which Pythagoras founded.

We stood, the three of us, with our eyes on Pickering, and in my own case I must say that my heart was pounding my ribs at an uncomfortable speed, for I knew Larry was not sparring for time.