monkey business

«I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by
inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I
was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I
shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped
the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I
had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in
the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things
of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality--the
reality, I tell you--fades. The inner truth is hidden--luckily,
luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious
stillness watching me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you
fellows performing on your respective tight-ropes for--what is it?
half-a-crown a tumble--» --
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Joseph_Conrad/Heart_of_Darkness/Chapter_II_p2.html