Shortstop

“ Marmion came running with their horses, and to Shorty's excited question, "Where's the general?" he got the heartless answer, "Gone hours ago, youngster, while you were asleep." Never stopping to saddle, only whipping through "Badger's" rattling teeth the bit of his bridle and throwing the reins over his head, Shorty is astride in a second, and, hardly yet wide awake, is away at a sputtering gallop after the departing officers. Before they have reached the little run half a mile out he has overtaken them. The sound of skirmish firing is still lively at the distant southwest front. ”

“ She was devoured by impatience and yet paralyzed by dread. Once, as the cab halted in a block of traffic, she heard a clock strike seven, and at the sound the blood rushed to her face as she thought of the nearness of her ordeal; but an instant later she drew out her watch to verify the time, and paled with sudden apprehension as she realized that the clock was slow. ”

“ Did the pendulum stop on reaching the highest point of the ascending arc? Did it pause before beginning the descent? And if it stopped, did time stop with it? I answered both questions in the affirmative. Well, then, what was a second? Did the stoppage at the end of the swing make the second, or was the second made by the swing, the movement between the two points of rest? I concluded that it was the stoppage. For, mark you, it takes a second for the pendulum to reach the stopping point on either side; therefore there can be no second till that point is reached ”

“ Put something across the road that he'll have to get out and move, like a fallen tree, or one of you lie in the road beside a car as if you was hurt. I'm sending Shorty and Link. They'll get there about eight o'clock. Beat him to it by an hour anyway, maybe more. Now it's up to you to look after details. Get anyone you want to help till Shorty and Link get there, and pay 'em so in case anything gets them, or they're late. I'll keep you wise from time to time how the guy gets on. ”

“ And all this long story was about—what do you think?
"We cannot hope to succeed, unless——" "But we must succeed."
Note that it is the long dash that is used at the end of a sentence.
The full stop is not added where the dash marks an unfinished sentence. But it is common to add the point of interrogation or the mark of exclamation. ”

“ Then he said, "She is four minutes slow—regulator wants pushing up." I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. ”

“ Adeler, for excessive speed. Give me a horse that can proceed with merely a tolerable degree of celerity and I am content. I never could comprehend why a man whose horse can trot a mile in two minutes and forty seconds should be made unhappy because another man's horse trots the same distance one second sooner—that is, of course, supposing that they are not running for money. One second of time never makes any especial difference to me, even when I am in a hurry. What I want in a horse is not swiftness, but urbanity. ”

“ Often they thought they had reached the lead, but always they overtook more stampeders who had started before them. Occasionally, groups of men attempted to swing in behind to their pace, but invariably they were discouraged after a mile or two, and disappeared in the darkness to the rear.
"We've been out on trail all winter," was Shorty's comment. "An' them geezers, soft from laying around their cabins, has the nerve to think they can keep our stride. Now, if they was real sour-doughs it'd be different. If there's one thing a sour-dough can do it's sure walk." ”

“ There began to grow within him a sensation of too much to be done in too little time.
He became frantic, his reactions were too fast! He rolled from end to middle of the board, now back-tracking, now spinning on his single wheel, turning uncertainly from one side to the other, jerking and gyrating. ”

“ When the stop is properly performed, it shows the great superiority of the rider’s hand over the horse. It confirms him in obedience, unites him, supples the haunches, and bends the houghs. Much mischief, however, may occur from a too frequent or injudicious practice of it. The perfection of the stop consists in the action ceasing at the finish of a cadence, without breaking the previous time; and in the horse being so balanced on his haunches, and so animated, that, with liberty given, he can advance with the same rapidity as before. ”

“ Only in one case was I at all satisfied of being able to count the rate of speed by a stop-watch, and, if I am not mistaken, there were thirty in ten seconds; generally one's eye can no more follow the legs than it can the spokes of a carriage-wheel in rapid motion. If we take the above number, and twelve feet stride as the average pace, we have a speed of twenty-six miles an hour. ”

“ And, on the other hand, if you set a clock forward even so little as ten minutes, you take away that much from the future, and you make the coming hour only fifty minutes long. Now, no human being has a right to take anything away from the future, or to make the hours shorter than they were intended to be. I desire, my dear niece, that you will earnestly think over what I have said, and I am sure that you will then see for yourself how unwise it would be to trifle with the length of the hours which make up our day. And now, Arla, let us talk of other things. ”

“ We wanted to get up to the top as quickly as we could, and see what was over the next hill."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's natural, but I don't think that's the way to climb 'round among the mountains. You get along as fast, and I think easier, if you go more slowly and make frequent stops, but have them short ones. If you go hurrying all the time, you get all blown by the hard work you're doing, and then when you have to stop, you have to stop a long time, and after you've rested for a long time you don't feel much like getting up and going on again; you're all tired out. ”

“ Shorten your reins, decrease your pace, and whether it is driving in the traffic of the street or at your own door, slow up gradually. You can tell with certainty whether a man knows his business by the way he starts and stops. If you have stopped as you should, the horse is not sitting in the breeching, with his collar sliding toward the top of his head; but horse and vehicle are stopped, and yet the horse and the vehicle and harness are all in position to go on again without a jerk. ”

“ At one time human beings wished to be shot along these tubes, but it was found that such rapid movement, although not felt, had an injurious effect, and it was therefore abolished. 'Why so fast?' said our statesmen, and our movements were limited to the average rate of one hundred miles an hour. We all agree now that that is fast enough. There is no need to push through to-day as if there was no to-morrow. Our lives are happy and full of leisure because we gave up hurrying. ”

“ Why, the only people who do any good in the world—apart from making Pullman cars and telephones, that is to say—are exactly those who do stop—who sit down and think. All the same, it is possible to stop too much. You are always stopping. ”

“ When, for example, wheeling a loaded wheelbarrow, he would go at a good fast pace even up hill in order to be as short a time as possible under load, and immediately on the return walk slow down to a mile an hour, improving every opportunity for delay short of actually sitting down. In order to be sure not to do more than his lazy neighbor, he would actually tire himself in his effort to go slow. ”

“ The most perfect escapement would be that one which should perform its duty with the least influence upon the time of oscillation or vibration of the regulating organ. The stoppage of the train by the escapement is brought about in different ways, which may be gathered under three heads or categories. In the two which we shall mention first, the stop is effected directly upon the axis of the regulator, or against a piece which forms a part of that axis; the tooth of the escape wheel at the moment of its disengagement remains supported upon or against that stop. ”

“ Neither can he gain anything by a rush, as the impetus of any attack would be broken by the necessities of having to stop, turn round and start in another direction for too short a distance, before having to check and turn again, to acquire any momentum or "élan." ”

“ It is these unlooked-for events which continually trip up the most astute. We suffered by the slip, but we did not suffer alone.
When Shorty got out on the slates, carrying his handkerchief of valuables, he found something more deserving of cursing than the dinner—namely, a clear sky and a tolerably bright moon. Speaking rapidly and energetically under his breath, he crawled along, keeping on the safest side of the roof till he could do so no longer, having to go forward to make his way over a range of chimney cans. ”

“ To reach the end of a day, natures that are slightly nervous, as mine was, make use, like motor-cars, of different 'speeds.' There are mountainous, uncomfortable days, up which one takes an infinite time to pass, and days downward sloping, through which one can go at full tilt, singing as one goes. ”

“ Our ancestors were content to jog along for days in a stuffy stage-coach; we complain that the train which accomplishes the same distance in a few hours is too slow. We act more quickly; we think more quickly. ”

“ Life turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my adagio movements, and some of you say,—This is good,—play us so always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. ”

“ Like a traveller, who has been put out of his way, by the overflowing of some rapid stream, you have only had the fore-right path you were in overwhelmed. A few miles about, a day or two only lost, as I may say, and you are in a way to recover it; and, by quickening your speed, will get up the lost time. ”

“ Gerald read, “should try to develop a long, easy stride. He should not, however, exhaust himself seeking to attain a length of stride which his build naturally prohibits. An unnatural stride results in exhaustion. By careful practice he may add to the length of stride by just that little within his power, and which may mean a great deal in a contest. Remember that in distance running every inch added to the stride means seconds gained at the finish.” ”

“ As she was choosing a corner whence she could watch the track, it was at least likely that she expected some one to go up or down by it. If she were looking for some one to go down, she would surely rather watch its approaches than the place itself. ”

“ A traveller, starting on foot along with one of them, meets one in 121⁄2 minutes: when will he be overtaken by one?
Answer.—In 61⁄4 minutes.
Solution.—Let "a" be the distance an omnibus goes in 15 minutes, and "x" the distance from the starting-point to where the traveller is overtaken. Since the omnibus met is due at the starting-point in 21⁄2 minutes, it goes in that time as far as the traveller walks in 121⁄2; i.e. it goes 5 times as fast. Now the overtaking omnibus is "a" behind the traveller when he starts, and therefore goes "a + x" while he goes "x." ”

“ We have just given ourselves a good shake, like a Newfoundland dog, when four bells (2 a.m.) strike, and the man at the wheel is of course relieved, his time being up. It happens to be our turn, or 'trick,' at the wheel, and we must at once take to it, all dripping and exhausted as we are. ”

“ With a strange instinct they always stop a while at the bottom of a steep ascent, and then dash off at a quick pace up it, to rest again at the top. Very often too they will stop at the level spots which do occur now and then, until they are forced on by the drivers or by other beasts coming up. ”

“ As a general rule, however, it may as well be said here as elsewhere that, in brook-jumping, pace comes first and then judgment. With a powerful impetus you get over; should your horse blunder, somehow—if with a fall at the other side, no matter: less speed enables you to pick your ground better, but it throws all the odds on the side of a cold-bath, should the span be wider than you calculated on, or the bank be soft, and let you in. ”

“ In nine cases out of ten there is really no need for such frantic hurry. Even express trains take their time about it whenever they do stop, and ordinary trains have a reputation for slowness and unpunctuality to which they seldom fail to live up. ”

“ A kind of emphasis which we may classify as contrast is that which occurs when movement is suddenly arrested. The unexpected stop not only makes the previous motion seem faster than it really was, but it also fixes attention more alertly on the thing which has just stopped moving. When you bump against a chair in the darkness you are always astonished to find that you were dashing along instead of merely walking slowly. ”

“ Now, you go ahead and set pace for half an hour. Do your worst, and when you're all in I'll go ahead and give you half an hour of the real worst."
"Huh!" Shorty sneered genially. "An' him not dry behind the ears yet. Get outa the way an' let your father show you some goin'."
Half-hour by half-hour they alternated in setting pace. Nor did they talk much. Their exertions kept them warm, though their breath froze on their faces from lips to chin. So intense was the cold that they almost continually rubbed their noses and cheeks with their mittens. ”