breath-quickened

Updated: May 16, 2025

Now, as Ikey entered, McMahan stood, flushed and triumphant and mighty, the centre of a huzzaing concourse of his lieutenants and constituents. It seems there had been an election; a signal victory had been won; the city had been swept back into line by a resistless besom of ballots. Ikey slunk along the bar and gazed, breath-quickened, at his idol.

O. Henry - The Trimmed Lamp, and other Stories of the Four Million