“I’M not goin’ through it,” said Bundy, “I’m orf!” And he accordingly drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket and, having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as he went out. The others laughed.
Crass, remembering the cutting from the Obscurer that he had in his pocket, was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was taking. He turned roughly on Owen:
“The other day, when we was talkin’ about the cause of poverty, you contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself couldn’t tell us what’s the cause of poverty, could you?”
“I think I could.”
“Oh, of course, you think you know,” sneered Crass, “and of course you think your opinion’s right and everybody else’s is wrong.”
“Yes,” replied Owen.
Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of Owen’s, but the latter rejoined:
“Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who differs from me is wrong. If I didn’t think their opinions were wrong I wouldn’t differ from them. If I didn’t think my own opinions right I wouldn’t hold them.”
“But there’s no need to keep on arguin’ about it day after day,” said Crass. “You’ve got your opinion and I’ve got mine. Let everyone enjoy his own opinion, I say.”