Davidson expressing his horror and incredulity of such foolishness,
Heyst explained that when the company came into being he had his few
belongings sent out from Europe.

To Davidson, as to any of us, the idea of Heyst, the wandering drifting,
unattached Heyst, having any belongings of the sort that can furnish a
house was startlingly novel. It was grotesquely fantastic. It was like a
bird owning real property.

"Belongings? Do you mean chairs and tables?" Davidson asked with
unconcealed astonishment.

Heyst did mean that. "My poor father died in London. It has been all
stored there ever since," he explained.

"For all these years?" exclaimed Davidson, thinking how long we all had
known Heyst flitting from tree to tree in a wilderness.

"Even longer," said Heyst, who had understood very well.

This seemed to imply that he had been wandering before he came under our
observation. In what regions? And what early age? Mystery. Perhaps he
was a bird that had never had a nest.

"I left school early," he remarked once to Davidson, on the passage. "It
was in England. A very good school. I was not a shining success there."

The confessions of Heyst. Not one of us--with the probable exception of
Morrison, who was dead--had ever heard so much of his history. It
looks as if the experience of hermit life had the power to loosen one's
tongue, doesn't it?

During that memorable passage, in the Sissie, which took about two days,
he volunteered other hints--for you could not call it information--about
his history. And Davidson was interested. He was interested not because
the hints were exciting but because of that innate curiosity about our
fellows which is a trait of human nature. Davidson's existence, too,
running the Sissie along the Java Sea and back again, was distinctly
monotonous and, in a sense, lonely. He never had any sort of company on
board. Native deck-passengers in plenty, of course, but never a white
man, so the presence of Heyst for two days must have been a godsend.
Davidson was telling us all about it afterwards. Heyst said that his
father had written a lot of books. He was a philosopher.

"Seems to me he must have been something of a crank, too," was
Davidson's comment. "Apparently he had quarrelled with his people in
Sweden. Just the sort of father you would expect Heyst to have. Isn't
he a bit of a crank himself? He told me that directly his father died he
lit out into the wide world on his own, and had