His case illustrated the risks explorers run. Not the physical risks,
which are overestimated, but the psychological dangers. For years he had
lived among savages, observing their ways, and owing to this he had
fallen into a completely detached mental habit. When he returned to
civilization, he had become a confirmed looker-on. He couldn't get back
into touch with us. He remained an outsider.
I met him but once myself. I was in the publishing business at the time,
and, hearing that this man was in New York, I thought I might as well
see him about his next book. Telephoning him, therefore, at his hotel, I
asked him to dine with me on the following Friday.
"Fri-day?" he replied. "What is 'Friday'?" (He spoke English perfectly.)
"It is the twenty-sixth," I answered.
He said: "The twenty-sixth what? Oh, I know," he continued; "Friday is a
day of the week. Thank you very much, but I do not keep track of my
dinners so carefully as that."
This rather odd answer I passed over, at the moment, thinking I had
misunderstood him; and we arranged that he would come some day to my
office instead, after lunch.
The next that I heard, he had called there at a quarter to five, the
hour at which I always leave. My secretary explained to him that I had
gone.
He looked at my desk, on which lay some unfinished business, and said to
my secretary, "Why?"