They exchanged further confidences, about women, about girls. Theo asked if Addie was going to marry Doddie. But Addie said that he wasn't thinking of marrying and that the resident wouldn't be willing either, because he didn't care for Addie's family and thought them too Indian. Then, in a single word, he let slip his pride in his Solo descent and his pride in the halo which shone dimly behind the heads of all the De Luces. And Addie asked if Theo knew that he had a young brother running wild in the compound. Theo knew nothing about it. But Addie assured him that it was so: a young son of papa's, mark you, from the time when the governor was still controller at Ngadjiwa; a fellow of their own age, a regular Eurasian: the mother was dead. Perhaps the old man himself didn't know that he still had a son in the compound, but it was true; everybody knew it: the regent knew, the native councillor knew, the head of the district knew, and the meanest coolie knew. There was no actual proof; but a thing like that, which was known the whole world over, was as true as that the world itself existed.... What did the fellow do? Nothing, except curse and swear, declaring that he was a son of the kandjeng tuan residèn, who allowed him to rot in the compound.... What did he live on? On nothing, on what he got by shameless begging, on what people gave him and then ... by all sorts of practices: by going round the districts, through all the villages, and asking if there were any complaints and then drawing up little petitions; by encouraging people to go to Mecca and let him book their passages with very cheap little steamship-companies of which he was the unofficial agent: he would go to the remotest village and display coloured posters representing a steamer full of Mecca pilgrims and the Kaaba and the Sacred Tomb of Mohammed. He would mess around like this, sometimes mixed up in rows, once in a robbery, sometimes dressed in a sarong, sometimes in an old striped calico suit; and he slept anywhere. And, when Theo showed surprise and said that he had never heard of this half-brother of his and expressed curiosity, Addie suggested that they should go and look him up, if he was to be found in the compound. And Addie gaily and quickly took his bath and put on a clean white suit; and they went across the road and along the rice-fields into the compound.