intolerable to himself . . . "Do you think so?" he asked,
disturbed; but in a moment added confidently, "I was going on though.
Was I not?" It was impossible to be angry with him: I could not help a
smile, and told him that in the old days people who went on like
this were on the way of becoming hermits in a wilderness. "Hermits be
hanged!" he commented with engaging impulsiveness. Of course he didn't
mind a wilderness. . . . "I was glad of it," I said. That was where
he would be going to. He would find it lively enough, I ventured to
promise. "Yes, yes," he said, keenly. He had shown a desire, I continued
inflexibly, to go out and shut the door after him. . . . "Did I?" he
interrupted in a strange access of gloom that seemed to envelop him
from head to foot like the shadow of a passing cloud. He was wonderfully
expressive after all. Wonderfully! "Did I?" he repeated bitterly. "You
can't say I made much noise about it. And I can keep it up, too--only,
confound it! you show me a door." . . . "Very well. Pass on," I struck
in. I could make him a solemn promise that it would be shut behind him
with a vengeance. His fate, whatever it was, would be ignored,
because the country, for all its rotten state, was not judged ripe
for interference. Once he got in, it would be for the outside world as
though he had never existed. He would have nothing but the soles of his
two feet to stand upon, and he would have first to find his ground at
that. "Never existed--that's it, by Jove," he murmured to himself. His
eyes, fastened upon my lips, sparkled. If he had thoroughly understood
the conditions, I concluded, he had better jump into the first gharry he
could see and drive on to Stein's house for his final instructions. He
flung out of the room before I had fairly finished speaking.'

CHAPTER 23

'He did not return till next morning. He had been kept to dinner and for
the night. There never had been such a wonderful man as Mr. Stein. He
had in his pocket a letter for Cornelius ("the Johnnie who's going to
get the sack," he explained, with a momentary drop in his elation), and
he exhibited with glee a silver ring, such as natives use, worn down
very thin and showing faint traces of chasing.

'This was his introduction to an old chap called Doramin--one of the
principal men out there--a big pot--who had been Mr. Stein's friend in
that country where he had all these adventures. Mr. Stein called him
"war-comrade." War-comrade was g