There’s no fun in fightin’ fer people when everything yeh do — no matter what — ain’t done right. - Stephen Crane

LCVI

If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a bast blue,
Echoless, ignorant,-
What then?

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved his
respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a soul. For how was he to
know that there was a soul before him that needed saving?

The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a single long explosion. In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched. They stood as men tied to stakes.