s in an hotel and had stuck there for years, giving no doubt perfect
satisfaction to the management. They had twice raised his rent to show
I suppose their high sense of his distinguished patronage. He had
bought for himself out of all the wealth streaming through his fingers
neither adulation nor love, neither splendour nor comfort. There was
something perfect in his consistent mediocrity. His very vanity seemed
to miss the gratification of even the mere show of power. In the days
when he was most fully in the public eye the invincible obscurity of his
origins clung to him like a shadowy garment. He had handled millions
without ever enjoying anything of what is counted as precious in the
community of men, because he had neither the brutality of temperament
nor the fineness of mind to make him desire them with the will power of
a masterful adventurer..."

"You seem to have studied the man," I observed.

"Studied," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "No! Not studied. I had no
opportunities. You know that I saw him only on that one occasion I told
you of. But may be that a glimpse and no more is the proper way of
seeing an individuality; and de Barral was that, in virtue of his very
deficiencies for they made of him something quite unlike one's
preconceived ideas. There were also very few materials accessible to a
man like me to form a judgment from. But in such a case I verily
believe that a little is as good as a feast--perhaps better. If one has
a taste for that kind of thing the merest starting-point becomes a coign
of vantage, and then by a series of logically deducted verisimilitudes
one arrives at truth--or very near the truth--as near as any
circumstantial evidence can do. I have not studied de Barral but that
is how I understand him so far as he could be understood through the din
of the crash; the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper contents
bills, `The Thrift Frauds. Cross-examination of the accused. Extra
special'--blazing fiercely; the charitable appeals for the victims, the
grave tones of the dailies rumbling with compassion as if they were the
national bowels. All this lasted a whole week of industrious sittings.
A pressman whom I knew told me, `He's an idiot.' Which was possible.
Before that I overheard once somebody declaring that he had a criminal
type of face; which I knew was untrue. The sentence was pronounced by
artificial light in a stifling poisonous atmosphere. Something e