climbed up again and got outside in the
street, we all staggered a little and could not speak.

When breath returned, further down the street, we recommenced burrowing
into a passage to the opium den, and this was a most wonderful and
terrible sight; a room with a stove in it, not more than ten feet
square and about eight feet high, no perceptible ventilation but the
door, which the detective put his foot in to keep a little open; a
raised platform along one side of the place, and on it four Chinamen
lying in different stages of the effects of opium. The first one's eyes
were beginning to glaze, the pipe had fallen from his hand, and he was
staring in front of him, and clutching some sheets of paper with
Chinese writing on them in one hand, a ghastly smile of extraordinary
bliss on his poor thin face. He was "happy and dreamin'," the detective
told us. I do wonder what about, don't you, Mamma? The next had just
begun to smoke, and was angry at our entrance because we let in some
air! The detectives made him give us the pipe to smell, and we watched
the way it was smoked, the man looking sullen and fierce and resentful,
crouching like a beast ready to spring. So Valerie's brother and Gaston
both thought it their duty to take care of me. The next man was half
asleep, also smoking, and the fourth what they call "quite sick." He
was the most dreadful of all, as he might have been a corpse except for
the rising and falling of his chest. The Mayor told us, with the most
amusing reflections upon this serious subject, that he would lie like
that for forty-eight hours and then wake. A fearful looking creature
crouched by the stove, cooking some more dog, or preparing something
for the opium; and a glaring piece of scarlet cloth hung down from a
rail at the top. There were some wicked long knives lying about, and
the whole thing, lit up by the light of one lantern, was a grim picture
of horror I shall never forget and hope never to see again. And this is
called pleasure! What a mercy, Mamma, our idea of joy is different. I
am glad to have seen these strange things, but I never want to again.

Everyone's head swam from the smell of the opium, and Tom said he was
rather sorry he had let us go there because of that; but Octavia told
him not to be ridiculous; experience is what we had come to America
for, and this is one of the sights.

After that we just had fun, going to a joss-house to have our fortunes
told, where a quaint prie