Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION. 129
third grog, insisted that the hour was h\te and he must
positively get to bed.
' Dear me,' observed Zero, ' I find you very tem-
perate. But I will not be oppressive. Suffice it that
we are now fast friends ; and, my dear landlord, au
re voir ! '
So saying the plotter once more shook hands ; and
with the politest ceremonies, and some necessary guidance,
conducted the bewildered young gentleman to the top of
the stair.
Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which
Somerset remained in utter darkness ; but the next
morning when, at a blow, he started broad awake, there
fell upon his mind a perfect hurricane of horror and
wonder. That he should have suffered himself to be led
into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as his
abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a
mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a
situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talley-
rand. That w^as perhaps a palliation ; but it was no
excuse. For so wholesale a capitulation of principle, for
such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse indeed
was possible ; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once
from the relation.
As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, deter-
mined on a rupture. Zero hailed him with the warmth
of an old friend.
' Come in,' he cried, ' dear Mr. Somerset ! Come in,
sit doAvn, and, without ceremony, join me at my morning
meal.'
' Sir,' said Somerset, ' you must permit me first to
disengage my honour. Last night, I was surprised into
a certain appearance of complicity ; but once for all, let
me inform you that I regard you and your machinations
w4th unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no
stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.'
' My dear fellow,' replied Zero, with an air of Bome
complacency, ' I am well accustomed to these human
weaknesses. Disgust ? I have felt it myself ; it speedily
wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more
K