"It's five months or more since I have spoken to anybody who has seen
him."

As I have said, we were not much interested; but Schomberg, of course,
could not understand that. He was grotesquely dense. Whenever three
people came together in his hotel, he took good care that Heyst should
be with them.

"I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself," he would add with a
comical earnestness that ought to have made us shudder; only our crowd
was superficial, and did not apprehend the psychology of this pious
hope.

"Why? Heyst isn't in debt to you for drinks is he?" somebody asked him
once with shallow scorn.

"Drinks! Oh, dear no!"

The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic temperament seldom is. But he
put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps
three visits altogether to his "establishment." This was Heyst's crime,
for which Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long and tormented
existence. Observe the Teutonic sense of proportion and nice forgiving
temper.

At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approaching a group of his
customers. He was obviously in high glee. He squared his manly chest
with great importance.