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Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English fellows, to whom, for his father's sake, he played the part of genial host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them "first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them."
But neither gained an inch at the fall, so the start-off was perfect. "Now pull for all you're worth, Rovers!" cried one cadet. "Haul 'em over, Rockleys!" cried another. "Steady, boys!" whispered Tom. "Don't get nervous. There is lots of time." He was almost flat on his back, with both feet braced firmly in the soil.
They tossed for the honor, and the first man to start-off with the message was an awkward shock-headed chap who, the narrator says, didn't impress by his appearance. Into the blinding hail of bullets he dashed, and cleared the first hundred yards without mishap. In the second lap he fell wounded, but struggled to his feet and rushed on till he was hit a second time and collapsed.
Another and another and still others followed in rapid succession, until he had exhausted his supply. "How's that?" he demanded her approval. "Well, it's not so bad for a start-off," she answered with an absence of enthusiasm that dashed him from his pose of self-abnegation. "You don't realize what that means," he complained. "It means, jilt Miss Nicotine in haste, and repent at leisure."
"It would be a wonderful attraction," went on Charlie thoughtfully, as though he had not heard his brother; "it would draw crowds, and give you such a start-off. I think you'd have to pay me so much an hour, it would be such a fine advertisement." "It would draw people to the window, but I don't know that it would bring them inside," laughed Bella.
"Well, I felt that if the Lord had gave it to me to stand up there and say a word of start-off to all them boys setting solemn and listening, it wouldn't have been about no combination of things done by men dead and gone, that didn't seem to prove nothing in particular on nobody.
She can influence him about this and about that, but she can't change him. It seems as if he couldn't let her if he tried, and after the first start-off he don't try." "That's true," Westover assented. "We're terribly inflexible. Nothing but something like a change of heart, as they used to call it, can make us different, and even then we're apt to go back to our old shape.
"Starry fighter, ain't he? Wonderful gift that way. Don't know as I ever saw his ekal at a pinch." He looked up at the lad, swaying above him. "Feel funny?" The boy did not reply, leaning against the side, a far-away look in his eyes. Then he burst into tears. "There, there!" said the old man soothingly. "Sure to come a bit okkud-like first start-off.
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