[Gutenberg 32329] • Guy in the Jungle · or, A Boy's Adventure in the Wilds of Africa

It was November in London. The great city was buried under a dank, yellow fog. Traffic was temporarily checked; foot passengers groped their way by the light of the street lamps, and the hoarse shouts of the link boys running before cabs and carriages with blazing torches rang at intervals above the muffled rumble of countless wheels. In the coffee-room of a quiet hotel on the Strand a young man stands by the window, looking pensively out on the misty street. He is quite young, with light hair that falls half over his forehead, and a drooping, golden mustache, and in rather startling contrast to these a deep-bronzed complexion that tells of foreign lands and tropical suns. "Captain Chutney, sir?"