He showed a still greater interest in Mrs Gildea's journalistic work and professed a strong desire to enlighten British statesmen, through the medium of Mr Gibbs' admirable paper, on certain Imperial questions affecting Australia--the danger of a Japanese invasion in the northern waters--the establishment of a naval base by Germany in New Guinea--the Yellow Labour Problem and so forth.

He would intersperse his political dissertation with racy bits of description of life in the Bush, and would give the points of view of pearl fishers, miners, loafers, officials in out-of-the-way townships, Labour reformers, sheep and cattle owners--all of which vastly amused Lady Bridget, and was valuable 'copy,' typed unscrupulously by Mrs Gildea.

In fact, she owed to it much of the success which, later, attended her journalistic venture.

Mrs Gildea thought at first that the 'copy' would be more easily obtainable in the intervals before and after Lady Bridget's arrival, or on the days when she failed to come.

But, finding that Colin was distinctly at his best as a narrator with Biddy for an audience, she artfully arranged to take her notes under those conditions.