sed to them always failed to refute their arguments, and feared,
and nearly always refused, to meet them in fair fight--in open
debate--preferring to use the cowardly and despicable weapons of
slander and misrepresentation. The fact that these Socialists never
encountered their opponents except to defeat them, was a powerful
testimony to the accuracy of their reasonings and the correctness of
their conclusions--and yet they were undoubtedly mad. One might
converse with them for an indefinite time on the three divisions of
their subject without eliciting any proofs of insanity, but directly
one inquired what means they proposed to employ in order to bring about
the adoption of their plan, they replied that they hoped to do so by
reasoning with the others!

Although they had sense enough to understand the real causes of
poverty, and the only cure for poverty, they were nevertheless so
foolish that they entertained the delusion that it is possible to
reason with demented persons, whereas every sane person knows that to
reason with a maniac is not only fruitless, but rather tends to fix
more deeply the erroneous impressions of his disordered mind.

The wagonette containing Rushton and his friends continued to fly over
the road, pursued by the one in which rode Crass, Bill Bates, and the
Semi-drunk; but notwithstanding all the efforts of the drunken driver,
they were unable to overtake or pass the smaller vehicle, and when they
reached the foot of the hill that led up to Windley the distance
between the two carriages rapidly increased, and the race was
reluctantly abandoned.

When they reached the top of the hill Rushton and his friends did not
wait for the others, but drove off towards Mugsborough as fast as they
could.

Crass's brake was the next to arrive at the summit, and they halted
there to wait for the other two conveyances and when they came up all
those who lived nearby got out, and some of them sang 'God Save the
King', and then with shouts of 'Good Night', and cries of 'Don't forget
six o'clock Monday morning', they dispersed to their homes and the
carriages moved off once more.

At intervals as they passed through Windley brief stoppages were made
in order to enable others to get out, and by the time they reached the
top of the long incline that led down into Mugsborough it was nearly
twelve o'clock and the brakes were almost empty, the only passengers
being Owen and four or five others who lived down tow