The Lost World / Затерянный мир

Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily in a long and embarrassing silence.

“Well,” said he, at last, “we’ve gone and done it, young fellah my lad.” (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one word – “young-fellah-me-lad.”) “Yes, we’ve taken a jump, you an’ me. I suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in your head – what?”

“No thought of it.”

“The same here.

No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in the tureen. Why, I’ve only been back three weeks from Uganda, and taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin’s on – what? How does it hit you?”

“Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on the Gazette.”

“Of course – you said so when you took it on. By the way, I’ve got a small job for you, if you’ll help me.”

“With pleasure.”

“Don’t mind takin’ a risk, do you?”

“What is the risk?”

“Well, it’s Ballinger – he’s the risk.

You’ve heard of him?”

“No.”

“Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat at my best, but over jumps he’s my master. Well, it’s an open secret that when he’s out of trainin’ he drinks hard – strikin’ an average, he calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin’ like a devil ever since.

His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the best through anyone that comes near him, there’s been a bit of a strike among the serving-men. He’s a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot, too, but you can’t leave a Grand National winner to die like that – what?”

“What do you mean to do, then?” I asked.

“Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin’, and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then phone up a stomach-pump, we’ll give the old dear the supper of his life.”

It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one’s day’s work. I don’t think that I am a particularly brave man.