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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing.
The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into a
gehenna against his will; that he was dying of neglect and lack of
comforts. With all his dire protestations of increasing illness, to
the eye of others he remained unchanged. His currant-like eyes were as
bright and diabolic as ever; his voice was as rasping; his callous
face, with the skin drawn tense as a drum-head, had no flesh to lose.
A flush on his prominent cheek bones each afternoon hinted that a
clinical thermometer might have revealed a symptom, and percussion
might have established the fact that McGuire was breathing with only
one lung, but his appearance remained the same.
Heart of the West |
