"Now--quick!" "Yes--and you've just given a dinner to the very men who helped steal his money, and they sat here and laughed about it! I heard them as I came in!" The boy's tears were choking him now.
"Didn't I tell you to stop, you idiot!" His fist was within an inch of Jack's nose: "Do you want me to knock your head off?
What the hell is it your business who I invite to dinner--and what do you know about Mukton Lode?
Now you go to bed, and damn quick, too! Parkins, put out the lights!" And so ended the great crusade with our knight unhorsed and floundering in the dust.

Routed by the powers of darkness, like many another gallant youth in the old chivalric days, his ideals laughed at, his reforms flouted, his protests ignored--and this, too, before he could fairly draw his sword or couch his lance..