Savage

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Henry Morton Stanley stopped speaking for a moment, studying the hungry faces gathered around him. He sensed that everything — his bold plan, his reputation, his career, perhaps even, in an indirect way, his life — might hang on his next words. He cleared his throat and spoke.

“So I took off my hat, and said, ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume.’”

There was a moment of silence, and then the room erupted in laughter.

Stanley hid his relief behind a wry smile. He had been worried that something would be lost in the translation from English to Flemish Dutch, but it was an oft told tale, both by Stanley himself and in countless newspaper articles, which many of the assembled guests had no doubt already read. Now, nearly a decade after the fact, those words remained the perfect climax. Any further elaboration would only dull the impact of his clever punch line.

It was all rubbish, of course. He’d started it merely as a joke, a humorous way to avoid telling the truth, which he had not shared with anyone, but it had taken on a life of its own. The story was now part and parcel of the legend he had created for himself. He had been nurturing and cultivating this image — Stanley, the intrepid explorer, the man who found Livingstone — for a long time now, and soon he hoped to reap the fruits of that long labor. He would capitalize on his notoriety by finding an investor willing to fund his next great expedition.

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