THE LOST WORLD

The Lost World

CHAPTER I

"There Are Heroisms All Round Us"

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon
earth,--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly
good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If
anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the
thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really
believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a
week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his
views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an
authority.

For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup
about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the
depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange.

"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the
world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted
upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?"