hearted old
seaman would point an admiring finger at his back and whisper to whoever stood
near at the moment, »Long-headed chap that; deuced long-headed chap. Look at
him. Confidential man of old Hudig. I picked him up in a ditch, you may say,
like a starved cat. Skin and bone. 'Pon my word I did. And now he knows more
than I do about island trading. Fact. I am not joking. More than I do,« he would
repeat, seriously, with innocent pride in his honest eyes.
    From the safe elevation of his commercial successes Willems patronized
Lingard. He had a liking for his benefactor, not unmixed with some disdain for
the crude directness of the old fellow's methods of conduct. There were,
however, certain sides of Lingard's character for which Willems felt a qualified
respect. The talkative seaman knew how to be silent on certain matters that to
Willems were very interesting. Besides, Lingard was rich, and that in itself was
enough to compel Willems' unwilling admiration. In his confidential chats with
Hudig, Willems generally alluded to the benevolent Englishman as the lucky old
fool in a very distinct tone of vexation; Hudig would grunt an unqualified
assent, and then the two would look at each other in a sudden immobility of
pupils fixed by a stare of unexpressed thought.
    »You can't find out where he gets all that india-rubber, hey Willems?« Hudig
would ask at last, turning away and bending over the papers on his desk.
    »No, Mr. Hudig. Not yet. But I am trying,« was Willems' invariable reply,
delivered with a ring of regretful deprecation.
    »Try! Always try! You may try! You think yourself clever perhaps,« rumbled
on Hudig, without looking up. »I have been trading with him twenty - thirty
years now. The old fox. And I have tried. Bah!«
    He stretched out a short, podgy leg and contemplated the bare instep and the
grass slipper hanging by the toes. »You can't make him drunk?« he would add,
after a pause of stertorous breathing.
    »No, Mr. Hudig, I can't really,« protested Willems, earnestly.
    »Well, don't try. I know him. Don't try,« advised the master, and, bending
again over his desk, his staring bloodshot eyes close to the paper, he would go
on tracing laboriously with his thick fingers the slim unsteady letters of his
correspondence,
