Certainly, he gave Karla very little time to make up his mind. For that too is an axiom of pressure, as Karla was well aware : time to think is dangerous, except that in this case, there is reason to suppose that it was dangerous to Smiley also, though, for vastly different reasons; he might have relented at the eleventh hour. Only the immediate call to action, says the Sarratt folklore, will force the quarry to slip the ropes of his restraint, and against every impulse born or taught to him, sail into the blue. The same, on this occasion, may be said to have applied equally to the hunter.