Sourabaya. He dragged after him up and down that section of the tropical
belt a silent, frightened, little woman with long ringlets, who smiled
at one stupidly, showing a blue tooth. I don't know why so many of us
patronized his various establishments. He was a noxious ass, and he
satisfied his lust for silly gossip at the cost of his customers. It
was he who, one evening, as Morrison and Heyst went past the hotel--they
were not his regular patrons--whispered mysteriously to the mixed
company assembled on the veranda:

"The spider and the fly just gone by, gentlemen." Then, very important
and confidential, his thick paw at the side of his mouth: "We are among
ourselves; well, gentlemen, all I can say is, I don't you ever get mixed
up with that Swede. Don't you ever get caught in his web."




CHAPTER THREE


Human nature being what it is, having a silly side to it as well as
a mean side, there were not a few who pretended to be indignant on no
better authority than a general propensity to believe every evil report;
and a good many others who found it simply funny to call Heyst the
Spider--behind his back, of course. He was as serenely unconscious of
this as of his several other nicknames. But soon people found other
things to say of Heyst; not long afterwards he came very much to the
fore in larger affairs. He blossomed out into something definite. He
filled the public eye as the manager on the spot of the Tropical Belt
Coal Company with offices in London and Amsterdam, and other things