Turning with that finished courtesy of
attitude, movement voice, which was his obvious characteristic, he had
said with delicate playfulness:
"Come along and quench your thirst with us, Mr. McNab!"
Perhaps that was it. A man who could propose, even playfully, to quench
old McNab's thirst must have been a utopist, a pursuer of chimeras; for
of downright irony Heyst was not prodigal. And, may be, this was the
reason why he was generally liked. At that epoch in his life, in the
fulness of his physical development, of a broad, martial presence, with
his bald head and long moustaches, he resembled the portraits of Charles
XII., of adventurous memory. However, there was no reason to think that
Heyst was in any way a fighting man.
CHAPTER TWO
It was about this time that Heyst became associated with Morrison on
terms about which people were in doubt. Some said he was a partner,
others said he was a sort of paying guest, but the real truth of the
matter was more complex. One day Heyst turned up in Timor. Why in Timor,
of all places in the world, no one knows. Well, he was mooning about
Delli, that highly pestilential place, possibly in search of some
undiscovered facts, when he came in the street upon Morrison, who, in
his way, was also an "enchanted" man. When you spoke to Morrison of
going home--he was from Dorsetshire--he shuddered.
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