There were three or four scattered houses on the mountain slopes now deserted and unkempt. Guerillas it appears had scared the inhabitants away. He told us to whom they belonged, unfamiliar names. He pointed out his own house. It was almost hidden up there like an eagle's eyrie. I doubt it contained more than one room.
"But what does he do?" I cried impatiently. "What does he do all day?" This was typicd of the Shanghai mind.
"He does nothing" said my companion. "What do you expect him io do? What do you want him to I looked at him. He had very blue eyes. He smiled. He looked like a faun. I glanced at the craggy hill sides, at the pebbles upon which I stood while the stream wound its inconsequent way about my feet.
"But what does he eat?"
"He eats plenty."
I thought of Shanghai and I envied bim. He was both nameless and ageless. Later in the cool of the evening as we tramped homewards we saw him again, high up in his mountain home.
We continued over the pebbles and rocks until we left the stream at Pidgeon Head to climb into the mountains and suddenly we were confronted with a flock of goats, white ones and brown ones with curling horns. A shepherd sat in the long grass and immediately a child's story book picture into life. My col friendly of souls, at once launched into conversation with him. The goats belonged to the man in the valley.
"So that" I said, "is what he does."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.