'Quite right. Devilish low, that kind of thing. But I went in for it myself once. Did I ever tell you that I debated with a parson on Mile-end Waste? Fact! That was in my hot-headed days. A crowd of coster-mongers applauded me in the most flattering way.—I say, Earwaker, you haven't any whisky?'
'Forgive me; your conversation makes me forget hospitality. Shall I make hot water? I have a spirit-kettle.'
'Cold for me. I get in such a deuced perspiration when I begin to talk.—Try this tobacco; the last of half a hundred-weight I took in at Bahia.'
The traveller refreshed himself with a full tumbler, and resumed the conversation cheerily.
'Has he just been wasting his time, then, all these years?'
'He goes in for science—laboratory work, evolutionary speculations. Of course I can't judge his progress in such matters; but Moxey, a clever man in the same line, thinks very highly of him.'
'Just the fellow to travel with. I want to get hold of some solid scientific ideas, but I haven't the patience to work steadily. A confounded fault of mine, you know, Earwaker,—want of patience. You must have noticed it?'
'Oh—well, now and then, perhaps.'
'Yes, yes; but of course I know myself better. And now tell me about Moxey. A married man, of course?'
'No, lives with a sister.'