The Greatest Sci-Fi Tales Ever Written. Джек Лондон

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      The Professor mused a few moments over this series of characters; then raising his spectacles he pronounced:

      “These are Runic letters; they are exactly like those of the manuscript of Snorre Turlleson. But, what on earth is their meaning?”

      Runic letters appearing to my mind to be an invention of the learned to mystify this poor world, I was not sorry to see my uncle suffering the pangs of mystification. At least, so it seemed to me, judging from his fingers, which were beginning to work with terrible energy.

      “It is certainly old Icelandic,” he muttered between his teeth.

      And Professor Liedenbrock must have known, for he was acknowledged to be quite a polyglot. Not that he could speak fluently in the two thousand languages and twelve thousand dialects which are spoken on the earth, but he knew at least his share of them.

      So he was going, in the presence of this difficulty, to give way to all the impetuosity of his character, and I was preparing for a violent outbreak, when two o’clock struck by the little timepiece over the fireplace.

      At that moment our good housekeeper Martha opened the study door, saying:

      “Dinner is ready!”

      I am afraid he sent that soup to where it would boil away to nothing, and Martha took to her heels for safety. I followed her, and hardly knowing how I got there I found myself seated in my usual place.

      I waited a few minutes. No Professor came. Never within my remembrance had he missed the important ceremonial of dinner. And yet what a good dinner it was! There was parsley soup, an omelette of ham garnished with spiced sorrel, a fillet of veal with compote of prunes; for dessert, crystallised fruit; the whole washed down with sweet Moselle.

      All this my uncle was going to sacrifice to a bit of old parchment. As an affectionate and attentive nephew I considered it my duty to eat for him as well as for myself, which I did conscientiously.

      “I have never known such a thing,” said Martha. “M. Liedenbrock is not at table!”

      “Who could have believed it?” I said, with my mouth full.

      “Something serious is going to happen,” said the servant, shaking her head.

      My opinion was, that nothing more serious would happen than an awful scene when my uncle should have discovered that his dinner was devoured. I had come to the last of the fruit when a very loud voice tore me away from the pleasures of my dessert. With one spring I bounded out of the diningroom into the study.