Read "Captain Shannon" by Coulson Kernahan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As the cab which I had chartered rattled up the approach to the Great Eastern terminus at Liverpool Street, I had to admit to myself that the probability of my falling in again with the red-bearded man scarcely justified me in feeling so sanguine as I did.
I am not in the general way given to "presentiments," but on this occasion I felt almost childishly confident about the result of my operations. Though I told myself, over and over again, that there is nothing so hope-destroying to an active mind as compulsory inaction, and that it was only because I had something definite with which to occupy myself that I felt so hopeful, not all my philosophy could persuade me that I should fail in bringing the enterprise to a successful termination.