“Capable of greatness of soul, I grant you not.”
“Your greatness of soul is usually greatness of blundering. A man’s foremost duty is not to get collared. If you want to show you’re capable, that’s the way.”
At this Hyacinth suddenly felt himself moved to speak. “But some one must be caught always, must he not? Hasn’t some one always been?”
“Oh, I daresay you’ll be if you like it!” Muniment replied without looking at him. “If they succeed in potting you, do as Hoffendahl did, and do it as a matter of course; but if they don’t, make it your supreme duty, make it your religion, to lie close and keep yourself for another go. The world’s full of unclean beasts whom I shall be glad to see shovelled away by the thousand; but when it’s a question of honest men and men of courage I protest against the idea that two should be sacrificed where one will serve.”
“Trop d’arithmétique—trop d’arithmétique!—That’s fearfully English!” Poupin cried.
“No doubt, no doubt; what else should it be? You shall never share my fate if I have a fate and I can prevent it!” Muniment laughed.
Poupin stared at him and his coarse mirth, as if he thought the English frivolous as well as calculating; then he rejoined: “If I suffer I trust it may be for suffering humanity, but I trust it may also be for France.”
“Oh, I hope you ain’t going to suffer any more for France,” said Mr. Griffin. “Hasn’t it done that insatiable old country of yours some good by this time, all you’ve had to put up with?”
“Well, I want to know what Hoffendahl has come over for; it’s very kind of him, I’m sure. What’s he going to do for us?—that’s what I want to know,” brought out in a loud argumentative tone a personage at the end of the table most distant from Muniment’s place. His name was Delancey and he gave himself out as holding a position in a manufactory of soda-water; but Hyacinth had a secret belief that he was really a hairdresser—a belief connected with a high lustrous curl or crest which he wore on the summit of his large head, as well as with the manner in which he thrust over his ear, as if it were a barber’s comb, the pencil addressed to his careful note-taking on the discussions conducted at the “Sun and Moon.” His opinions were distinct and frequently expressed; he had a watery (Muniment had once called it a soda-watery) eye and a personal aversion to a lord. He desired to change everything except religion, of which he approved.
Muniment answered that he was unable to say as yet what the German revolutionist had come to England for, but that he hoped to be able to give some information on the matter the next time they should meet. It was very certain Hoffendahl hadn’t come for nothing, and he would undertake to declare that they would all feel within a short time that he had given a lift to the cause they had at heart. He had had a great experience, which they might very well find it useful to appeal to. If there was a way for them then and there he would be sure to know the way. “I quite agree with the majority of you—as I take it to be,” Muniment went on in his fresh, cheerful, reasonable manner—“I quite agree with you that the time has come to settle upon it and to follow it. I quite agree with you that the actual state of things is”—he paused a moment and then went on in the same pleasant tone—“is infamous and hellish.”