“You take your hostile attitude at once, and without much reluctance.”
“You know something of my experience. I have had a struggle all my life with sin in one form or other, with brutality in one form or other. I have been lacerated so often from unwillingness to strike the first blow, that I have at last been forced into the offensive.”
“You believe in flooring Apollyon before he floors you.”
“There must be somebody to do the merciless. It’s not my business—the melting mood—in my present era.”
“We are going off into generalities, à propos of those two brutes. What, O volunteer champion of virtue, dost thou propose in regard to them? When will you challenge them to the ordeal, to prove themselves honest men and good fellows?”
“Aggression always comes from evil. They are losels, we are true knights. They will do some sneaking villany. You and I will thereupon up and at ’em.”
“Odd fellow are you, with your premonitions!”
“They are very vague, of course, but based on a magnetism which I have learnt to trust, after much discipline, because I refused to obey it. Look at that big brute, how he kicks and curses his mule!”
“Perhaps he has stolen it, and is revenging his theft on its object. That brand ‘A. & A.’ may remind him what a thief he is.”
“Here comes the fat brother. He’ll propose to camp with us.”