However, aesthetics, like everything else, has its place in human economy and no more. No one aboard the _Cypriani_ became so absorbed in the marvels of nature as to become insensible to other pleasures. The air, new and fine from the hands of its Maker, acquired a distinct flavor of nicotine as it flitted past the yacht. From some hidden depth rose the subdued and convalescent snores of that early retirer, the sailing-master's wife. Below forward, two deck-hands were thoughtfully playing set-back for pennies, while a machinist sat by and read a sporting extra by a swinging bulb. Above forward, on a coil of rope, McTosh, the head steward and one of Mr. Carstairs's oldest servants, smoked a bad pipe, and expectorated stoically into the Hudson. The thought of the essential commonplaceness of this sort of thing recurred to Peter Maginnis. For all his life of idleness, which was, as it were, accidental, Peter was essentially a man of action; and life's sedentary movements irked him sorely. "Who is the individual monkeying around at the bow?" he asked presently. "It is Mr. Bissett, the ship's engineer, who is putting a coat of white lead over the yacht's name." "Aha! Aren't we old-sleuthy, though! And what's that piece of stage-play for?" "All these little hookers," said Varney, "are listed in a book, which many persons own. Why have the local press tell everybody to-morrow that the yacht _Cypriani_ belonging to Mr. Carstairs, husband once-removed to our own Mrs. Elbert Carstairs, is anchored off these shores?" "It seems," said Peter, "like a lot of smoke for such a little fire." He got up and sprawled on the rail, his yellow Panama pulled far over his eyes, his gaze fixed on the shining water. "First and last, I've seen rivers in my time," he said presently, "big and little, pretty and not, clean and soiled, decent and indecent. Yes, boy," said he, "you can take it from me that I've seen the world's darnedest in the matter of rivers, and I have liked them all from Ganges to the Sacramento and back again. There was a time when I didn't have that sort of personal feeling for 'em, but a little chap up in Canada, he helped me to the light. He was the keenest on rivers I ever knew." He broke off to yawn greatly, started to resume, thought better of it, checked himself, and presently said in an absent voice: "No, that's too long to tell." "There's two hours till bedtime."