"For myself," said he, "I should be pleased to have you with me. Are you ready to start at once? We hope to sail next week."
Max nodded.
"H'm," said the explorer, "I must ask Crouch. I think he's in the club."
He went to one of the green baize doors at the other end of the room, opened it, and looked in.
"Crouch," said he, "do you mind coming here a moment. There's something I want to ask you."
He then came back to his seat and filled another pipe. As he was engaged in lighting this, a green baize door swung back and there entered one of the most extraordinary men that it was ever the lot of the young medical student to behold.
As we have said, the Explorers' Club was in Bond Street, and Captain Crouch was dressed after the fashion of a pilot; that is to say, he wore a navy-blue suit with brass buttons and a red tie. He was a very small man, and exceedingly thin. There seemed nothing of him. His head was almost entirely bald. He wore a small, bristling moustache, cut short like a tooth-brush, and a tuft of hair beneath his nether lip. His eyebrows were exceedingly dark, and met on the bridge of his nose. His skin was the colour of parchment, and wrinkled and creased in all directions. He had a large hook nose, and a chin of excessive prominence. Though he appeared entirely bloodless, there was something about him that suggested extreme vital energy--the kind of vitality which may be observed in a rat. He was an aggressive-looking man. Though he walked with a pronounced limp, he was quick in all his movements. His mouth was closed fast upon a pipe in which he smoked a kind of black tobacco which is called Bull's Eye Shag, one whiff of which would fumigate a greenhouse, killing every insect therein from an aphis to a spider. He reeked of this as a soap-factory smells of fat. In no other club in London would its consumption have been allowed; but the Explorers were accustomed to greater hardships than even the smell of Bull's Eye Shag.
"Well, Ted," said Crouch, "what's this?"
One eye, big and staring, was directed out of the window; the other, small, black and piercing, turned inwards upon Max in the most appalling squint.
"This is my nephew," said Harden; "Max Harden--Captain Crouch, my greatest friend."