Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/95

 on the matter the next time they should meet. It was very certain Hoffendahl hadn't come for nothing, and he would undertake to declare that they would all feel, within a short time, that he had given a lift to the cause they were interested in. He had had a great experience, and they might very well find it useful to consult. If there was a way for them, then and there, he was sure to know the way. 'I quite agree with the majority of you—as I take it to be,' Muniment went on, with his fresh, cheerful, reasonable manner—'I quite agree with you that the time has come to settle upon it and to follow it. I quite agree with you that the actual state of things is—' he paused a moment, and then went on in the same pleasant tone—'is hellish.'

These remarks were received with a differing demonstration: some of the company declaring that if the Dutchman cared to come round and smoke a pipe they would be glad to see him—perhaps he'd show where the thumbscrews had been put on; others being strongly of the opinion that they didn't want any more advice—they had already had advice enough to turn a donkey's stomach. What they wanted was to put forth their might without any more palaver; to do something, or for some one; to go out somewhere and smash something, on the spot—why not?—that very night. While they sat there and talked, there were about half a million of people in London that didn't know where the h the morrow's meal was to come from; what they wanted to do, unless they were just a collection of pettifogging old women, was to show them where to get it, to take it to them with heaped-up hands. Hyacinth listened, with a divided attention, to interlaced iterations,