Chapter 33 - Page 2

get anything to eat from locusts and wild honey to a
stalled ox. By the way, since you know so little about East London, let
me take you a little further east; then you will be able to boast some
day that you stood on the volcano and looked down into its seething
crater just before the great eruption. Of course I mean that you will be
able to make that boast if you happen to survive the eruption."

If Eden had little taste for ordinary enthusiasm, he had still less for
downright madness, and he hastily begged his friend to defer the volcanic
question until after luncheon. Merton's language surprised him, it seemed
so wildly irrational, and uttered with so much seriousness. In his
appearance also there were signs of degeneracy: he was thin and pale and
rather shabbily dressed, and wore a broad-brimmed rusty black felt hat,
which he frequently pulled off only to twist it into some new
disreputable shape and thrust it on again. Over a black half-unbuttoned
waistcoat he wore only a light covert coat, which had long seen its best
days; his boots were innocent of polish. Eden noticed all that, and
remembering that his friend had once been quite as fastidious about his
dress as himself, he was a little shocked at his appearance.

In a few minutes they were seated at a table where they were served with
an excellent luncheon, with plenty of variety in it, although it did not
include locusts and wild honey. Rather oddly, Merton appeared to have
leisure enough to make the most of it; he studied the menu with the
interest of a professed _gourmet_, freely advised Eden what to eat,
and partook of at least half a dozen different dishes himself. Nor was he
sparing of the wine; and after adjourning to the smoking-room, and
lighting the fragrant Havannah his friend had given him, he declined
coffee but ordered a second bottle of six-shilling claret.

"It rather surprises me to see a travelled fellow like you, Eden,
drinking English-made coffee," he said. "For my part, until the French
can send it to us as they make it, bottled, I intend to stick to their
light wines."

All this amused Eden; he liked it better than the wild talk about
impending eruptions, and began to feel rather pleased that he had met
Merton after all. Still, he could not help experiencing some curiosity
about his mysterious friend's way of life; and in spite of prudence he
led the way to this dangerous topic.

"Just look at this, Eden; this will show you what I am doing. You Pall
Mall gentlemen are living in a fool's paradise--excuse me for putting it
so bluntly--but personally you are my friend, although in our ways of
thought we are as far as the poles asunder." He had taken a newspaper
from his pocket, a