Can he be in the throes of a fresh paroxysm?
This hypothesis is hardly admissible, for if the Count d'Artigas is to be believed, he would in this event have summoned me to attend to the inventor.
A little farther on I encounter Engineer Serko.
With his inviting manner and usual good-humor this ironical individual smiles when he perceives me, and does not seek to avoid me.

If he knew I was a colleague, an engineer--providing he himself really is one--perhaps he might receive me with more cordiality than I have yet encountered, but I am not going to be such a fool as to tell him who and what I am.
He stops, with laughing eyes and mocking mouth, and accompanies a "Good day, how do you do ?" with a gracious gesture of salutation.
I respond coldly to his politeness--a fact which he affects not to notice.
"May Saint Jonathan protect you, Mr.Gaydon!" he continues in his clear, ringing voice.

"You are not, I presume, disposed to regret the fortunate circumstance by which you were permitted to visit this surpassingly marvellous cavern--and it really is one of the finest, although the least known on this spheroid." This word of a scientific language used in conversation with a simple hospital attendant surprises me, I admit, and I merely reply: "I should have no reason to complain, Mr.Serko, if, after having had the pleasure of visiting this cavern, I were at liberty to quit it." "What! Already thinking of leaving us, Mr.Gaydon,--of returning to your dismal pavilion at Healthful House?
Why, you have scarcely had time to explore our magnificent domain, or to admire the incomparable beauty with which nature has endowed it." "What I have seen suffices," I answer; "and should you perchance be talking seriously I will assure you seriously that I do not want to see any more of it." "Come, now, Mr.Gaydon, permit me to point out that you have not yet had the opportunity of appreciating the advantages of an existence passed in such unrivalled surroundings.

It is a quiet life, exempt from care, with an assured future, material conditions such as are not to be met with anywhere, an even climate and no more to fear from the tempests which desolate the coasts in this part of the Atlantic than from the cold of winter, or the heat of summer.

This temperate and salubrious atmosphere is scarcely affected by changes of season.