Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/123

 if his theory failed. They argued warmly; Merritt, rashly undertaking to mediate, was speedily placed hors de combat and forced to retire ignominiously. The contestants waxed eloquent in invective, losing sight completely of the casus belli; in the end they parted, sulky as two angry children; thereafter ignored each other in high disdain. Merritt, sorely perplexed, strove to pour balm into their wounds, with assurances that both were right—that either way was equally good, and that the sun was responsible for their—er, irritation. Whereat Holloway retorted that the sun had nothing whatever to do with it that it was merely the obstinate pigheadedness of some people who could see no other point of view than their own. To this Deane replied that it was