The little schoolmaster was seated at breakfast when the Cape cart clattered noisily up the sunny street, and Lawless, descending from it, entered the hotel. He went to his room, stripped, bathed, and changed his clothes; then he repaired in all haste to the dining-room, and nodding to Mr Burton, sat down at the end of the table.
“I’m famished,” he said. “But if you’ll give me a little time in which to take the brunt off an appetite that seems as though it would never be satisfied, I’ll be ready to accompany you as we arranged.”
The mild eyes behind the glasses blinked their surprise and their pleasure in equal degrees.
“Oh! plenty of time! plenty of time?” he asserted, and quietly pushed the butter and rolls and fruit nearer the new-comer’s hand. “It’s early... I am glad to see you. I was afraid you might not be returning.”
Lawless fell to on his breakfast when it made its appearance with a zest that astonished his companion.
“What a good thing it is to have a healthy appetite,” he observed. “Early rising and a drive before breakfast suit you, my friend.”
Lawless laughed grimly.
“For the first time I experience a sneaking sympathy with the cannibal... I could almost eat you.”
Even a much neglected appetite reaches its limit in time. The quantity of food that Lawless managed to dispose of was a revelation to the schoolmaster; he had never in all his life been equal to making such a meal.
“You have a good digestion,” he remarked. “It is a fine thing.”