The two armies were now face to face, and the Red Knight gathered his staff about him for a few final words of exhortation.
"Remember, men," he said. "Victory is assured. On our side are all the honest men. Against us are all the thieves. We need only win forty of them over to our side and the battle is ours."
Alice thought that was rather strange tactics, but she said nothing. She gazed with admiration at the Red Knight. He was resplendent in a new suit of armour fashioned out of lithographed photographs of Abraham Lincoln. From his helmet fluttered a copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In his right hand he held a copy of Magna Charta, and with the left he waved aloft one of the Harvester's fattest checkbooks. A mighty cheer broke from the multitude, but the Red Knight commanded silence.
"As you go into battle," he went on, "ask yourself this: Can the practitioners of theft and burglary triumph over the forces of righteousness?"
"Never!" shouted the Publisher, like the hero in one of his own magazines.
"Don't be an ass, Frank," said the Red Knight. "Of course they always do, except when I am here to lead the forces of righteousness. That makes all the difference in the world."
Alice thought she had never seen him in such a logical frame of mind. The men about him felt exactly the same way.
The Red Knight went on: "The principal thing when you take up arms is to know what you are fighting for. Do all of you know what you are after?"
"We do!" they cried in chorus. Conviction was stamped on every face.