That book-shelves lined the rectangular portion of this
strange study I divined, although that end of the place was dark as a
catacomb. The walls were wood-panelled, and the ceiling was
oaken-beamed. A small book shelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon
either side of the table, and the celebrated American author and
traveller lay propped up in a long split-cane chair. He wore smoke
glasses, and had a clean-shaven, olive face, with a profusion of
jet-black hair. He was garbed in a dirty red dressing-gown, and a
perfect fog of cigar smoke hung in the room. He did not rise to greet
us, but merely extended his right hand, between two fingers whereof he
held Smith's card.
"You will excuse the seeming discourtesy of an invalid, gentlemen?" he
said; "but I am suffering from undue temerity in the interior of
China!"
He waved his hand vaguely, and I saw that two rough deal chairs stood
near the table. Smith and I seated ourselves, and my friend, leaning
his elbow upon the table, looked fixedly at the face of the man whom
we were come from London to visit. Although comparatively unfamiliar
to the British public, the name of Van Roon was well known in American
literary circles; for he enjoyed in the United States a reputation
somewhat similar to that which had rendered the name of our mutual
friend, Sir Lionel Barton, a household word in England. It was Van
Roon who, following in the footsteps of Madame Blavatsky, had sought
out the haunts of the fabled mahatmas in the Himalayas, and Van Roon
who had essayed to explore the fever swamps of Yucatan in quest of the
secret of lost Atlantis; lastly, it was Van Roon, who, with an
overland car specially built for him by a celebrated American firm,
had undertaken the journey across China.
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