Why so idle a person as I should have looked down--as I did, from the
first--on Follet, I cannot explain. The money I lived on was certainly
not of my own making. But, strictly speaking, I could have gone home if
I had chosen, and I more than suspected that Follet could not have.
Follet was not enamoured of Naapu, and talked grandiloquently of
Melbourne and Batavia and Hong-Kong. He continued, however, to be a
resident of the island, and none of his projects of removal to a better
place ever went beyond mere frothy talk. He lived at Dubois's, but spent
much of his time with the aforesaid magnates. He had an incorruptible
manner; some grace that had been bred in him early never forsook him,
and the ladies of Naapu liked him. Even good Madame Mauer, who squinted,
squinted more painfully at Follet than at any one else. But his idleness
was beginning to tell on him; occasionally he had moody fits, and there
were times when he broke out and ran amuck among beach-combers and tipsy
natives along the water-front. More than once, Ching Po sought him out
and fetched him home.
My first intimation of trouble came from Stires. I had nothing to do
with this particular Yankee in the way of business, but I lingered
occasionally by his door in the cool of the afternoon, just to feed my
eyes on his brawn and my ears on his homely and pleasant nasality.
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