“I should never have thought I could take such an interest in things that did not concern me,” said Bailey to Wilderspin, who used to come in in his nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by being talked to.  “I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids.  But it’s just circumstances.  I simply can’t work, and things have to drift; it’s no good to fret and struggle.  And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle, at this river and its affairs.

“Sometimes, of course, it gets a bit dull, but not often.

“I would give anything, Wilderspin, for a swamp—­just one swamp—­once.  Heads swimming and a steam launch to the rescue, and a chap or so hauled out with a boat-hook....  There goes Fitzgibbon’s launch!  They have a new boat-hook, I see, and the little blackie is still in the dumps.  I don’t think he’s very well, Wilderspin.  He’s been like that for two or three days, squatting sulky-fashion and meditating over the churning of the water.  Unwholesome for him to be always staring at the frothy water running away from the stern.”

They watched the little steamer fuss across the patch of sunlit river, suffer momentary occultation from the acacia, and glide out of sight behind the dark window-frame.

“I’m getting a wonderful eye for details,” said Bailey:  “I spotted that new boat-hook at once.  The other nigger is a funny little chap.  He never used to swagger with the old boat-hook like that.”

“Malays, aren’t they?” said Wilderspin.

“Don’t know,” said Bailey.  “I thought one called all that sort of manner Lascar.”

Then he began to tell Wilderspin what he knew of the private affairs of the houseboat, Purple Emperor.  “Funny,” he said, “how these people come from all points of the compass—­from Oxford and Windsor, from Asia and Africa—­and gather and pass opposite the window just to entertain me.  One man floated out of the infinite the day before yesterday, caught one perfect crab opposite, lost and recovered a scull, and passed on again.  Probably he will never come into my life again.  So far as I am concerned, he has lived and had his little troubles, perhaps thirty—­perhaps forty—­years on the earth, merely to make an ass of himself for three minutes in front of my window.  Wonderful thing, Wilderspin, if you come to think of it.”

“Yes,” said Wilderspin; “isn’t it?”

A day or two after this Bailey had a brilliant morning.  Indeed, towards the end of the affair, it became almost as exciting as any window show very well could be.  We will, however, begin at the beginning.

Bailey was all alone in the house, for his housekeeper had gone into the town three miles away to pay bills, and the servant had her holiday.  The morning began dull.  A canoe went up about half-past nine, and later a boat-load of camping men came down.  But this was mere margin.  Things became cheerful about ten o’clock.