THE STEADFAST HEART
lest the man’s vindictiveness should take the form of some drastic action within the scope of his authority as prosecuting attorney.
“Let me give you a version of those fights that differs from those you have heard,” said Browning, and convincingly he related the story of the day Angus was beset by the crowd of boys yelling “Murderer,” and “Jailbird,” and of Angus’s terror which all but kept him a prisoner in the printing office save when he went on the streets accompanied. “As for this last affair—it marks the greatest step ahead that Angus has made. It marks the awakening in the boy of an understanding that he owes a duty to himself—that there is such an abstraction as self-respect. Young Crane has been, from the beginning, a leader of the young rascals who have tormented Angus. It was as if he carried some special animus….” Browning paused to let this sink in. He could not, or felt he could not, make a direct charge against his rival. “Always before Angus has run terrified, but this time he stood, just walked up to Crane and kept repeating as if it were a lesson, ‘I’ve got to stand up for myself. I’ve got to stand up for myself.’ He wasn’t angry—no loss of temper—just grave and very resolute…. It seemed a rather fine thing to me.”
There was a long silence, broken by Mr.
94
