"I am a dead boy now," he said to
himself. He had not the faintest conception what his mother was
driving at, and thought she suspected about the watch; but he held his
ground.
I do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours,
only he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when they
are off their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughly
handled. I believe that if the truth were known, it would be found
that even the valiant St. Michael himself tried hard to shirk his
famous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts of
misconduct on the dragon's part; shut his eyes to the eating up of I
do not know how many hundreds of men, women, and children whom he
had promised to protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a
dozen times over without resenting it; and in the end, when even an
angel could stand it no longer, he shillyshallied and temporised an
unconscionable time before he would fix the day and hour for the
encounter. As for the actual combat it was much such another
wurra-wurra as Mrs. Allaby had had with the young man who had in the
end married her eldest daughter, till after a time, behold, there
was the dragon lying dead, while he was himself alive and not very
seriously hurt after all.
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