I wondered where he had gone to--but now I know.
He vanished from my ken only to drift into this adventure that,
unavoidable, waited for him in a world which he persisted in looking
upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in the sunlight. Often in the
course of years an expressed sentiment, the particular sense of a phrase
heard casually, would recall him to my mind so that I have fastened on
to him many words heard on other men's lips and belonging to other men's
less perfect, less pathetic moods.
The same observation will apply mutatis mutandis to Mr. Jones, who is
built on a much slenderer connection. Mr. Jones (or whatever his name
was) did not drift away from me. He turned his back on me and walked out
of the room. It was in a little hotel in the island of St. Thomas in
the West Indies (in the year '75) where we found him one hot afternoon
extended on three chairs, all alone in the loud buzzing of flies to
which his immobility and his cadaverous aspect gave a most gruesome
significance. Our invasion must have displeased him because he got off
the chairs brusquely and walked out, leaving with me an indelibly weird
impression of his thin shanks. One of the men with me said that the
fellow was the most desperate gambler he had ever come across. I said:
"A professional sharper?" and got for an answer: "He's a terror; but I
must say that up to a certain point he will play fair.
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