"A noise bomb?" Cliff said. "I don't get it."
"They make a tremendous noise, but do nothing else. However, members of the mob who aren't really too interested in the whole thing—just sort of along for the fun—figure that things are getting earnest and that the troops are shelling them. So they remember some business they had elsewhere and take off."
Isobel said suddenly, "You like this sort of work, don't you?"
Elmer Allen grunted bitterly.
"No," Homer Crawford said flatly. "I don't. But I like the goal."
"And the end justifies the means?"
Homer Crawford said slowly, "I've never answered that to my own satisfaction. But I'll say this. I've never met a person, no matter how idealistic, no matter how much he played lip service to the contention that the ends do not justify the means, who did not himself use the means he found available to reach the ends he believed correct. It seems to be a matter of each man feeling the teaching applies to everyone else, but that he is free to utilize any means to achieve his own noble ends."
"Man, all that jazz is too much for me," Abe said.
They were entering the outskirts of Mopti. Small groups of obviously excited Africans of various tribal groups, were heading for the center of town.
"Abe, Jake," Crawford said. "We'll drop you here. Mingle around. We'll hold the big meeting in front of the Great Mosque in an hour or so."