The Lost World
Chapter One
"There Are Heroisms All Round Us"
Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon
earth-a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly
good-natured, but absolutely centred upon his own silly self. If
anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the
thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really
believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days
a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear
his views upon bimetallism-a subject upon which he was by way of
being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous
chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver,
the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange.
"Suppose," he cried, with feeble violence, "that all the debts in
the world were called up simultaneously and immediate payment
insisted upon. What, under our present conditions, would happen
then?"
I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon
which he jumped from his ... read full excerpt from The Lost World ebook
