o see the man with the scar.

CHAPTER IX

AN EXCITING ADVENTURE

Mr Cargrim found a considerable number of people in the coffee-room, and
these, with tankards and glasses before them, were listening to the
conversation of Jentham. Tobacco smoke filled the apartment with a thick
atmosphere of fog, through which the gas-lights flared in a nebulous
fashion, and rendered the air so hot that it was difficult to breathe in
spite of the windows being open. At the head of the long table sat
Jentham, drinking brandy-and-soda, and speaking in his cracked, refined
voice with considerable spirit, his rat-like, quick eyes glittering the
while with alcoholic lustre. He seemed to be considerably under the
influence of drink, and his voice ran up and down from bass to treble as
he became excited in narrating his adventures.

Whether these were true or false Cargrim could not determine; for
although the man trenched again and again on the marvellous, he
certainly seemed to be fully acquainted with what he was talking about,
and related the most wonderful stories in a thoroughly dramatic fashion.
Like Ulysses, he knew men and cities, and appeared to have travelled as
much as that famous globe-trotter. In his narration he passed from China
to Chili, sailed north to the Pole, steamed south to the Horn, described
the paradise of the South Seas, and discoursed about the wild wastes of
snowy Siberia. The capitals of Europe appeared to be as familiar to him
as the chair he was seated in; and the steppes of Russia, the deserts of
Africa, the sheep runs of Australia were all mentioned in turn, as
adventure after adventure fell from his lips. And mixed up with these
geographical accounts were thrilling tales of treasure-hunting, of
escapes from savages, of perilous deeds in the secret places of great
cities; and details of blood, and war, and lust, and hate, all told in a
fiercely dramatic fashion. The man was a tramp, a gipsy, a ragged,
penniless rolling-stone; but in his own way he was a genius. Cargrim
wondered, with all his bravery, and endurance, and resource, that he had
not made his fortune. The eloquent scamp seemed to wonder also.

'For,' said he, striking the table with his fist, 'I have never been
able to hold what I won. I've been a millionaire twice over, but the
gold wouldn't stay; it drifted away, it was swept away, it vanished,
like Macbeth's witches, into thin air. Look at me, you country cabbages!
I've reigned a kin