"Well," said Rankin, "I suppose he knows what he's about. He's got Jewdwine at his back."
Maddox shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Jewdwine? Jewdwine won't slate his own man, but he can't very well turn round and boom the set he always goes for. This," said Maddox, "is my deal. I shall sail in and discover Ricky-ticky."
"He's taking precious good care to hide himself. It's a thousand pities he ever got in with those wretched decadents."
"He isn't in with them."
"Well, he mayn't be exactly immersed, but the tide's caught him."
"The tide? You might be talking of the Atlantic."
"The stream then—' the stream of tendency that makes for '—muck."
"It isn't a stream, it's a filthy duck-pond in somebody's back yard. There's just enough water for the rest to drown in, but it isn't deep enough to float a man of Rickman's size. He's only got his feet wet, and that won't hurt him."
"There are things," said Rankin, "in Saturnalia that lend themselves to Crawley's treatment."
"And there are things in it that Crawley can't touch. And look at the later poems—The Four Winds, On Harcombe Hill, and The Song of Confession. Good God! It makes my blood boil to compare the man who wrote that with Letheby. Letheby! I could wring Vaughan's neck and Hanson's too. I should like to take their heads and knock them together. As for Letheby I'll do for him. I'll smash him in one column, and I'll give Rickman his send-off in four."