Plot Summary

James Oliver, has a delicate little wife about to become a mother. Their family doctor advises Oliver that he must not become engaged in any physical encounter or get hurt in any way or it would kill her. Soon thereafter Oliver is at the bar when a rough patron of the place invites him to drink. Oliver declines and on insistence by the rough, asks for soda water, which the rough throws in Oliver's face in disgust. Forced to fight or acknowledge himself a coward, Oliver admits cowardice. They all jeer him, when an old man a quiet spectator of the scene, tells the following story visioned in and out in pictures. He takes for his text the statement that, "No man who will admit that he is a coward for a principal is one". He depicts the story of a young man, Thomas Marsh by name, who had a feeling of fear born in his physical being.