The men of the Lotus looked on in mute and helpless rage.
All were covered by the guns of the boarding party--the still
forms of two of their companions bearing eloquent witness to
the slenderness of provocation necessary to tighten the trigger
fingers of the beasts standing guard over them.
Billy Byrne never hesitated in his rush for the upper deck.
The sight of the man awaiting him above but whetted his
appetite for battle. The trim flannels, the white shoes, the natty
cap, were to the mucker as sufficient cause for justifiable
homicide as is an orange ribbon in certain portions of the
West Side of Chicago on St. Patrick's Day. As were "Remember
the Alamo," and "Remember the Maine" to the fighting
men of the days that they were live things so were the habiliments
of gentility to Billy Byrne at all times.
Billy Mallory was an older man than the mucker--twenty-four
perhaps--and fully as large. For four years he had
played right guard on a great eastern team, and for three he
had pulled stroke upon the crew. During the two years since
his graduation he had prided himself upon the maintenance of
the physical supremacy that had made the name of Mallory
famous in collegiate athletics; but in one vital essential he was
hopelessly handicapped in combat with such as Billy Byrne,
for Mallory was a gentleman.
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