He made
a point of that. 'But when one is young one must see things, gather
experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.' 'Here!' I interrupted. 'You
can never tell! Here I met Mr. Kurtz,' he said, youthfully solemn and
reproachful. I held my tongue after that. It appears he had persuaded a
Dutch trading-house on the coast to fit him out with stores and goods,
and had started for the interior with a light heart and no more idea of
what would happen to him than a baby. He had been wandering about that
river for nearly two years alone, cut off from everybody and everything.
'I am not so young as I look. I am twenty-five,' he said. 'At first old
Van Shuyten would tell me to go to the devil,' he narrated with keen
enjoyment; 'but I stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he
got afraid I would talk the hind-leg off his favourite dog, so he gave
me some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would never
see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one
small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a little thief
when I get back. I hope he got it. And for the rest I don't care. I had
some wood stacked for you. That was my old house. Did you see?'
"I gave him Towson's book.
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