“I said he was a good man.”
“One might say as much of a pan of dough. The creature is absolutely without motion; I tried him mentally and physically, so to speak; the man is stagnant.”
“None the less a good man,” I contended. “To do nothing is at least to do no harm.”
“Now, that is as may be,” retorted the General. “I will have nothing to do with your motionless folk. They are always the worst folk of all. I never have been in any crush of peril or concern where action was not less hazardous than inaction, and to do the wrong thing far and away better than to do nothing at all. Now, this fellow Curtis of yours would not even talk. He had no more conversation than a catfish.”
“Silence is caution,” said I, dogmatically, also reaching down a pipe from the mantel to keep the General in smoky countenance; “silence is caution, and caution is ever a good thing.”
“Caution is a braggart,” returned the General, argumentatively, “to call itself a virtue when it is more often a cover for cowardice. Caution has lost more fights than rashness, you may take a soldier's word for that.”
“That is in keeping with your other proverb, 'Never overrate a foe.' Those be the maxims to get folk killed!”
“And why not, so the folk be the enemy? I have beaten twice my strength because they overrated me.”
“Still,” said I, stubbornly, “the crime of silence which you charge upon this Curtis is no mighty delinquency. Words, as a rule, are a weakness; and I think Curtis should be marshal.”
“Let him be marshal, then, and end it,” returned the General; “but I may tell you, sir, that words are not a weakness, but a source of strength.” The General was an indomitable conversationist, and would not be criticised. “The man who says the most, commonly knows the most, and comes most often to succeed. Silent folk win only by accident, as he shall see who retraces any of their victories to its birth.”