"How do you know I'm thinking of anything?" asked Curdie.
"Because you're not saying anything."
"Does it follow then that, as you are saying so much, you're not thinking at all?" said Curdie.
"I know what he's thinking," said one who had not yet spoken; "—he's thinking what a set of fools you are to talk such rubbish; as if ever there was or could be such an old woman as you say! I'm sure Curdie knows better than all that comes to."
"I think," said Curdie, "it would be better that he who says anything about her should be quite sure it is true, lest she should hear him, and not like to be slandered."
"But would she like it any better if it were true?" said the same man. "If she is what they say—I don't know—but I never knew a man that wouldn't go in a rage to be called the very thing he was."
"If bad things were true of her, and I knew it," said Curdie, "I would not hesitate to say them, for I will never give in to being afraid of anything that's bad. I suspect that the things they tell, however, if we knew all about them, would turn out to have nothing but good in them; and I won't say a word more for fear I should say something that mightn't be to her mind."
They all burst into a loud laugh.
