“Well, then, as it is nearly two o'clock perhaps you will lunch with me to-day. Is there any place close by where we can get something to eat and drink? I am all at sea when I get as far east as this.”
“Thanks,” said Merton, with a laugh. “That just reminds me that I have had nothing except a cup of tea since seven o'clock this morning. Too busy even to remember such a thing as food. Yes, there's the Cathedral Hotel, where you can get anything to eat from locusts and wild honey to a stalled ox. By the way, since you know so little about East London, let me take you a little further east; then you will be able to boast some day that you stood on the volcano and looked down into its seething crater just before the great eruption. Of course I mean that you will be able to make that boast if you happen to survive the eruption.”
If Eden had little taste for ordinary enthusiasm, he had still less for downright madness, and he hastily begged his friend to defer the volcanic question until after luncheon. Merton's language surprised him, it seemed so wildly irrational, and uttered with so much seriousness. In his appearance also there were signs of degeneracy: he was thin and pale and rather shabbily dressed, and wore a broad-brimmed rusty black felt hat, which he frequently pulled off only to twist it into some new disreputable shape and thrust it on again. Over a black half-unbuttoned waistcoat he wore only a light covert coat, which had long seen its best days; his boots were innocent of polish. Eden noticed all that, and remembering that his friend had once been quite as fastidious about his dress as himself, he was a little shocked at his appearance.
In a few minutes they were seated at a table where they were served with an excellent luncheon, with plenty of variety in it, although it did not include locusts and wild honey. Rather oddly, Merton appeared to have leisure enough to make the most of it; he studied the menu with the interest of a professed gourmet, freely advised Eden what to eat, and partook of at least half a dozen different dishes himself. Nor was he sparing of the wine; and after adjourning to the smoking-room, and lighting the fragrant Havannah his friend had given him, he declined coffee but ordered a second bottle of six-shilling claret.
“It rather surprises me to see a travelled fellow like you, Eden, drinking English-made coffee,” he said. “For my part, until the French can send it to us as they make it, bottled, I intend to stick to their light wines.”
All this amused Eden; he liked it better than the wild talk about impending eruptions, and began to feel rather pleased that he had met Merton after all. Still, he could not help experiencing some curiosity about his mysterious friend's way of life; and in spite of prudence he led the way to this dangerous topic.
“Just look at this, Eden; this will show you what I am doing. You Pall Mall gentlemen are living in a fool's paradise—excuse me for putting it so bluntly—but personally you are my friend, although in our ways of thought we are as far as the poles asunder.” He had taken a newspaper from his pocket, a small sheet of coarse paper printed with bad type, and turning and refolding it he handed it to his friend. The article to which Eden's attention was drawn was headed “A Last Word,” and occupied three columns, and at the foot appeared the name of Merton Chance.
“I see; but surely you don't expect me to read this now?” said Eden. “Your last word is a very long one.”
“No, you can put the paper in your pocket to read at your leisure. I think it will have the effect of opening your eyes, Eden. That you may escape the wrath to come is my devout wish.”
“Thanks. So you have gone in for the Salvation Army business?” And he glanced at the title of the paper, but it was not the War Cry. The Time Has Come was the name of the sheet he held in his hand, to which Merton Chance had the honour to be a contributor.