The Lost World. (Illustrated)

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?"