of the east monsoon
when there is no longer any steaminess in the heat, nor any muddiness
underfoot, nor any escape from pestilential wind and pervading dust:
dust of the roads and dust of the seared rice fields, and crumbled
refuse heaps and dust of a scorching hinterland; until a man's soul is
changed in him, as you might say, to a portion of immortal thirst.

And also by necessary logic it has Zimballo's.

To this institution, one evening in the dry weather, came Mr. Merry,
making what speed he could and clinging to the handrail all the way up
from the landing while he caught his breath and stared painfully about.

Below the point he saw the harbor like a sheet of crinkled copper.
Overhead arched a coppery dome. To seaward he could gaze down a vista of
rocky and deserted islets resembling slag heaps, where the sinking sun
showed like a red-hot spot in the huge, coppered oven in which he found
himself. He had been traveling since dawn; he had been without liquor
for something like twelve hours; and as he resumed his struggle toward
the clutter of tinroofed sheds and arbors which marked his goal he
achieved in his mind a dim but quite definite conviction--that hell
could hold few surprises for him now, and earth none at all....

But therein he erred.

"Where is the price?" demanded Zimballo, and when Merry laid down a
single piece of silver the international ruffian shook his crop head.
"No go," he stated.

"It's all I have," said Merry.

"It ain' enough," decided Zimballo, eying him.

In fact, Mr. Merry made an odd figure of a customer. He wore a coolie's
grass hat with a pointed crown. About his body hung an old duck jacket,
so rotted with rust and mildew as to lend scant anchorage for one brass
safety pin. His feet were graced with a pair of aboriginal sandals. It
was true he still retained the essential garment, as the frayed ends
above his ankles were there to prove. But for political reasons he had
swathed himself mid-about with a striped Malay sarong, which is half a
skirt and half a sash: whereat Zimballo took purpled offense.

This rogue, himself a mongrel grown fat in the slums of three
continents, held starchy notions on the subject of pants.

"A drink," he said with intention, "will be half a dollar. If you don'
got it, get out. And if you _do_ got it, pay quick and get out any'ow!"

"I--I haven't it; no. But for any sakes, man," gasped Merry between
blackened lips, "you wouldn't turn a chap of