The day pleased him, as indeed it pleased the greater part of London, from its fineness. He walked upon the sunny side of the street, and his smile, though restrained and somewhat sadly dignified, was the more genial from the influence of the weather. His brain during this brief exercise was not concerned, as those ignorant of our great men might imagine, with affairs of State, nor even with the choice of investments upon which he was in so short a time to determine. He was occupied rather in planning (for his power of organisation was famous) how exactly he should fit in his engagements for the day.
A Board meeting, especially if there is any chance of long argument with a late riser of exceptional stupidity, may last for an indefinite time. He gave it an hour and a half.
Then he must lunch, and that hour was earmarked for a certain foreigner who could not wholly make up his mind whether to build a certain bridge over a certain river for a certain government or no.
By a quarter to three he must be in the House of Commons to answer questions, for those which fell to his share came early upon the paper, and it was the pride of this exact and efficient man to keep no one waiting. Before four he must see the manager of a bank; the matter was urgent, he did not wish to write or telephone. By five he must be back again in his room in the House of Commons to receive a deputation of gentlemen who would arrive from his distant constituency, and who proposed with a mixture of insistence and of fear to demand certain commercial advantages for their town at the expense of a neighbouring borough whose representative but rarely busied himself with the Great Council of the Nation.
At six he must order with particular care a dinner upon which (in his opinion) the chances of the Saltoon Development largely depended. At seven he must dress, at eight he must dine. His guests (many of whom to his knowledge would drink to excess) would certainly detain him till long after ten. He must be back in the House to vote at eleven; for some half-hour or so after eleven he must be present to attend a short debate (or what he hoped would prove a short debate) concerning his own Department. He would be lucky if he was in bed by twelve.
Let the reader leave him there walking in Oxford Street and turn her attention to George Mulross Demaine, or rather, to Mount Popocatapetl.
CHAPTER II
IT will generally be conceded that an underground river flowing with terrific force through a region of perennial fire, must, of its nature, form a most insecure foundation for any large body of masonry; and the danger of building upon such a bottom will be the more apparent if the materials used in the construction of the edifice be insufficiently cemented through the business capacity of a contractor indifferent to the voice of conscience.