I cannot make him fire." "How is that, Sweeny ?" demanded the officer, putting on the proper grimness.

"Why haven't you fired when you were ordered ?" Sweeny was a little wizened shaving of an Irishman.

He was not only quite short, but very slender and very lean.

He had a curious teetering gait, and he took ridiculously short steps in marching, as if he were a monkey who had not learned to feel at ease on his hind legs.

His small, wilted, wrinkled face, and his expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness, were also monkey-like.