"Here's another coupon--and anything else you've got."
Mr. Lavender, whose pangs had leaped in him at the word "beef," gazed at
the bare bone of the beef-joint, and sighed.
"I, too, will have some ham and a couple of poached eggs," he said.
"You can have ham, sir," replied the maid, "but there are only eggs
enough for one."
"And I am the one," said the young man, looking up for the first time.
Mr. Lavender at once conceived an aversion from him; his appearance was
unhealthy, and his eyes ravened from behind the spectacles beneath his
high forehead.
"I have no wish to deprive you of your eggs, sir," he said, "though I
have had nothing to eat all day."
"I have had nothing to eat to speak of for six months," replied the
young man, "and in a fortnight's time I shall have nothing to eat again
for two years."
Mr. Lavender, who habitually spoke, the truth, looked at him with a sort
of horror. But the young man had again concentrated his attention on his
plate. "How deceptive are appearances," thought Mr. Lavender; "one would
say an intellectual, not to say a spiritual type, and yet he eats like a
savage, and lies like a trooper!" And the pinchings of his hunger again
attacking him, he said rather acidly:
May I ask you, sir, whether you consider it amusing to tell such
untruths to a stranger?
The young man, who had finished what was on his plate, paused, and with
a faint smile said:
"I spoke figuratively.
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