Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.
“What would you like?” said he.
They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.
He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly, “I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”
“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”
“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”
“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience [pg 81] from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the Baron. “Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”
“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”
“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”