Coryndon became part of
the day's amusement to Leh Shin's assistant, he grew to know exactly
what both the boy and his master did during the hours of the day.
Unknown and unsuspected, the Burman went in and out as they went in and
out. He appeared at the house by the river, he sat with his legs
dangling over the drop from the Colonnade into the streets, and he wore
out the hours in idleness, the dust of the Bazaar powdering his hair and
griming his face, but behind his vacant eyes, his quick brain was alive
and burning, and he felt after Leh Shin with invisible hands.

Coryndon was never at the mercy of one idea only, and he began to see,
very soon after he had investigated the two houses--the ramshackle shop
and the riverside den--that if he intended to progress he could not
afford to sit in the street and drink in the cafe opposite Leh Shin's
dwelling for an interminable space of weeks. He had limitless patience,
but he was quick of action, and saw any flaw in his own system as soon
as a flaw appeared. Leh Shin was suspicious, and took precautions when
he went out at night, and this in itself made it dangerous to be
continually upon his heels in a character he knew and could recognize.
So long as there was anything to gain by remaining in his Burmese
clothing, Coryndon used it, avoiding the Chinaman and cultivating the
society of his assistant, but he soon began to realize that if he were
to follow as closely as he desired, he could not do so in his present
disguise.

All day he sat watching the crowded street, shivering, though the sun
was warm, and breaking his silence with complaints that the fever was
upon him, and that he was sick, and that he could not eat. He whimpered
and whined so persistently that the assistant drove him off, for he
feared infection, and fancied he might be sickening for the plague.

"Neither come thou hither, until thou art fully recovered," he added,
"lest I use my force upon thee."

If a certain beggar who had sat for a whole month outside the Golden
Temple at Amritzar was to become reincarnated in the person of the idiot
Burman, the Burman must have a reason to offer to the inquisitive for
his temporary absence. Sickness is sudden and active in the streets of
any Bazaar, and when Shiraz learnt that he was to keep within the house
and report the various stages of the fever of his friend, he salaamed
and drew out the battered box from under the bed, and folded away the
_loongyi_ and co