"You needn't begin with your best guns," argued Dick, a little hotly.
"We can't let Dick appropriate our metaphor to his own purposes," said Marchmont. "As a matter of fact now, had the Crusade much to do with it?"
Morewood interposed before Dick could answer.
"Oh, only as a Crusade. 'Causes' of any kind are properly suspected," said he. "For my part I should imitate the noble simplicity of municipal election bills. 'Down with the rates!' Quite enough, you know. The end is indisputably attractive, and you aren't such an ass as to try to indicate the means. So you get in."
"And don't do it?" The question was Marchmont's.
"Of course not—or what would you have to say next time?"
"The other side has always prevented your doing it?" the Dean suggested.
"Mostly, yes—by factious opposition."
"You fellows don't seem to care," observed Constantine Blair moodily, "but I tell you we're out for four or five years at least."
There was a pause; the accused persons looked at one another; then Marchmont had the courage to observe that the country would perhaps live through the period of calamity before it.