Chamberlain made him the subject of a fierce attack on
account of a past utterance, he was dealing with a man who was as little
influenced by such attacks as anybody could well be. For days Mr.
Chamberlain had been trying to bait Mr. Dillon into speech; and for days
Mr. Dillon had positively refused to be drawn. At last it seemed to some
friends of Mr. Dillon that if he did not speak his attitude might be
misunderstood, and that he would be supposed to entertain, as part of a
settled policy, what he had really uttered on the spur of the moment and
under the influence of intolerable wrong and provocation. But when in
the last days of June Mr. Chamberlain made his attack, and Mr. Dillon
had listened to it and asked for dates, Mr. Dillon thought that the
matter would not be worth further attending to, and relapsed into his
old attitude of easy contempt.
[Sidenote: The outbreak.]
This will account for what would otherwise be inexplicable; namely,
that, having had a week to prepare his defence, Mr. Dillon should on
July 3rd have fallen into a dreadful, and, for the moment, disastrous
blunder. The truth was, Mr. Dillon had never thought of the subject for
more than a few moments between the date of the challenge and Mr.
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