Second Period Second Narrative - Chapter III
be Mr. Murthwaite.
On his appearance in England, after his wanderings, society had been
greatly interested in the traveller, as a man who had passed through
many dangerous adventures, and who had escaped to tell the tale. He had
now announced his intention of returning to the scene of his exploits,
and of penetrating into regions left still unexplored. This magnificent
indifference to placing his safety in peril for the second time, revived
the flagging interest of the worshippers in the hero. The law of chances
was clearly against his escaping on this occasion. It is not every day
that we can meet an eminent person at dinner, and feel that there is
a reasonable prospect of the news of his murder being the news that we
hear of him next.
When the gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, I found
myself sitting next to Mr. Murthwaite. The guests present being all
English, it is needless to say that, as soon as the wholesome check
exercised by the presence of the ladies was removed, the conversation
turned on politics as a necessary result.
In respect to this all-absorbing national topic, I happen to be one of
the most un-English Englishmen living. As a general rule, political talk
appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.
Glancing at Mr. Murthwaite, when the bottles had made their first round
of the table, I found that he was apparently of my way of thinking. He
was doing it very dexterously--with all possible consideration for
the feelings of his host--but it is not the less certain that he
was composing himself for a nap. It struck me as an experiment worth
attempting, to try whether a judicious allusion to the subject of the
Moonstone would keep him awake, and, if it did, to see what HE thought
of the last new complication in the Indian conspiracy, as revealed in
the prosaic precincts of my office.
