ready to assist him in his plans, and so on, and after receiving Heyst's
thanks--you know the usual kind of conversation--he proceeded to query
in a slow, paternal tone:

"And you are interested in--?"

"Facts," broke in Heyst in his courtly voice. "There's nothing worth
knowing but facts. Hard facts! Facts alone, Mr. Tesman."

I don't know if old Tesman agreed with him or not, but he must have
spoken about it, because, for a time, our man got the name of "Hard
Facts." He had the singular good fortune that his sayings stuck to him
and became part of his name. Thereafter he mooned about the Java Sea in
some of the Tesmans' trading schooners, and then vanished, on board an
Arab ship, in the direction of New Guinea. He remained so long in that
outlying part of his enchanted circle that he was nearly forgotten
before he swam into view again in a native proa full of Goram vagabonds,
burnt black by the sun, very lean, his hair much thinned, and a
portfolio of sketches under his arm. He showed these willingly, but
was very reserved as to anything else. He had had an "amusing time," he
said. A man who will go to New Guinea for fun--well!

Later, years afterwards, when the last vestiges of youth had gone off
his face and all the hair off the top of his head, and his red-gold
pair of horizontal moustaches had grown to really noble proportions,
a certain disreputable white man fastened upon him an epithet. Putting
down with a shaking hand a long glass emptied of its contents--paid
for by Heyst--he said, with that deliberate sagacity which no mere
water-drinker ever attained: