Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/91

 'Doch, doch, it is useful,' the German remarked, philosophically, among his yellow clouds.

'Do you mean to say you are not prepared for that, yourself?' Muniment inquired of the shoemaker.

'Prepared for that? I thought we were going to smash that sort of shop altogether; I thought that was the main part of the job.'

'They will smash best, those who have been inside,' the German declared; 'unless, perhaps, they are broken, enervated. But Hoffendahl is not enervated.'

'Ah, no; no smashing, no smashing,' Muniment went on. 'We want to keep them standing, and even to build a few more; but the difference will be that we shall put the correct sort in.'

'I take your idea—that Griffin is one of the correct sort,' the fat man remarked, indicating the shoemaker.

'I thought we was going to 'ave their 'eads—all that bloomin' lot!' Mr. Griffin declared, protesting; while Eustache Poupin began to enlighten the company as to the great Hoffendahl, one of the purest martyrs of their cause, a man who had been through everything—who had been scarred and branded, tortured, almost flayed, and had never given them the names they wanted to have. Was it possible they didn't remember that great combined attempt, early in the sixties, which took place in four Continental cities at once and which, in spite of every effort to smother it up—there had been editors and journalists transported even for hinting at it—had done more for the social question than anything before or since? 'Through him being served in the manner you describe?' some one asked, with plainness; to which Poupin replied that it was one of those failures