Chapter 10 - Page 2

him yet. Can he be in the throes of a fresh paroxysm?

This hypothesis is hardly admissible, for if the Count d'Artigas is to
be believed, he would in this event have summoned me to attend to the
inventor.

A little farther on I encounter Engineer Serko.

With his inviting manner and usual good-humor this ironical individual
smiles when he perceives me, and does not seek to avoid me. If he
knew I was a colleague, an engineer--providing he himself really is
one--perhaps he might receive me with more cordiality than I have yet
encountered, but I am not going to be such a fool as to tell him who
and what I am.

He stops, with laughing eyes and mocking mouth, and accompanies a
"Good day, how do you do?" with a gracious gesture of salutation.

I respond coldly to his politeness--a fact which he affects not to
notice.

"May Saint Jonathan protect you, Mr. Gaydon!" he continues in his
clear, ringing voice. "You are not, I presume, disposed to regret
the fortunate circumstance by which you were permitted to visit this
surpassingly marvellous cavern--and it really is one of the finest,
although the least known on this spheroid."

This word of a scientific language used in conversation with a simple
hospital attendant surprises me, I admit, and I merely reply:

"I should have no reason to complain, Mr. Serko, if, after having had
the pleasure of visiting this cavern, I were at liberty to quit it."

"What! Already thinking of leaving us, Mr. Gaydon,--of returning to
your dismal pavilion at Healthful House? Why, you have scarcely had
time to explore our magnificent domain, or to admire the incomparable
beauty with which nature has endowed it."

"What I have seen suffices," I answer; "and should you perchance be
talking seriously I will assure you seriously that I do not want to
see any more of it."

"Come, now, Mr. Gaydon, permit me to point out that you have not yet
had the opportunity of appreciating the advantages of an existence
passed in such unrivalled surroundings. It is a quiet life, exempt
from care, with an assured future, material conditions such as are not
to be met with anywhere, an even climate and no more to fear from the
tempests which desolate the coasts in this part of the Atlantic than
from the cold of winter, or the heat of summer. This temperate and
salubrious atmosphere is scarcely affected by changes of season. Here
we have no need to apprehend the wrath of either Pluto or Neptune."

"Sir," I reply, "it is impossible that this climate can suit you, that
you can appreciate living in this grotto of----"

I was on the point of pronouncing the