Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/156

 showed signs of a most unseemly and unheroic shakiness. For there was one thing which Lonely could not abide, and that was suspense. Once well in the heat of a fight, he could rush on to the end, blind and reckless; once having flung himself upon the turgid stream of opposition, he could battle exultantly on to the last breath. It was the stillness before the plunge, the squeamish hesitation and meditation upon the brink, which was so odious to his young soul. To this, later in life, might indeed be traced many of his misfortunes, little and big.

But still there was no advance from the gang, now not thirty paces away. There remained to Lonely only one tattered shred of consolation, through all that miserable length of suspense. That was the consciousness that he had at last shown himself to be worthy of their envy and their steel. He knew that now he could get all the fighting he wanted.

But he also knew that another minute of this sort of suspense and uncertainty would surely send him bolting into the little bake-shop, a coward and a fugitive.

So he did what seemed a most heroic thing,