The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 272: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXVIII REVELATIONS OF THE MONSTER - MAN Upon being seated together in a parlour at the tavern, Tim Meagles was enabled to examine James Melmoth more * attentively than during the hurried and excited discourse on the foot-way of the Edgeware Road. He now observed that there was not only something strange and wild in Mel- | moth’s looks, but an expression positively sinister and ferocious; now the eyes had a fixed and savage glare like those of a tiger when gazing on an enemy whom he longs to reach but cannot, and then those balls glittered with the vacillating, changeful, but still lurid light which showed a disordered mind and unsettled reason. The man’s counte- nance was pale, sallow, and care-worn, and the melancholy that was expressed in all the lower portion of his features contrasted strongly with the fiercer and darker passions that left their trace on his brow and lighted their fires in his eyes. As for his apparel, he was clad in a decent suit of clothes, and his personal appearance so far indicated anything but penury or distress. ‘‘ And now, Melmoth,”’ said Tim Meagles, when the waiter had placed a bottle of wine upon the table and had with- drawn, ‘‘ now tell me all that has happened to you since we parted off Woolwich nearly three months ago. That terrible and strange things have befallen you, I can divine too easily; your looks, my poor friend, bespeak you an altered man.” ‘“‘ Altered! yes, terribly altered, Mr. Meagles,”’ ejaculated Melmoth, with a burning look and an iron emphasis, as he struck his clenched fist forcibly upon the table. ‘‘ So altered, my dear sir,’”’ he continued, in an accent of satire and mockery now blending with the ferocity of his voice and making it 242 EONMIEIOO KS m