ny desk seven or eight
unopened telegrams were lying.

"Really," he said as he gathered them up, "I begin to think that it would
save my correspondents' money if I were to adopt a telegraphic address.
Possibly 'Noah, Rotherfield,' would be the most appropriate."

As usual when he made an obscure joke, he leaned against the desk and
bellowed in a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking so that he could
hardly open the envelopes.

"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord John and I
smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his head
in sardonic disagreement. Finally Challenger, still rumbling and
exploding, began to open his telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow
window and occupied ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.

It was certainly worth looking at. The road in its gentle curves had
really brought us to a considerable elevation--seven hundred feet, as we
afterwards discovered. Challenger's house was on the very edge of the
hill, and from its southern face, in which was the study window, one
looked across the vast stretch of the weald to where the gentle curves of
the South Downs formed an undulating horizon. In a cleft of the hills a
haze of smoke marked the position of Lewes. Immediately at our feet
there lay a rolling plain of heather, with the long, vivid green
stretches of the Crowborough golf course, all dotted with the players. A
little to the south, through an opening in the woods, we could see a
section of the main line from London to Brighton. In the immediate
foreground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed yard, in which
stood the car which had brought us from the station.

An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. He had read his
telegrams and had arranged them in a little methodical pile upon his
desk. His broad, rugged face, or as much of it as was visible over the
matted beard, was still deeply flushed, and he seemed to be under the
influence of some strong excitement.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a voice as if he was addressing a public
meeting, "this is indeed an interesting reunion, and it takes place under
extraordinary--I may say unprecedented--circumstances. May I ask if you
have observed anything upon your journey from town?"

"The only thing which I observed," said Summerlee with a sour smile, "was
that our young friend here has not improved in his manners during the
years that have passed. I am sorry to s