at among
your unbreakable possessions."

He shook his head. "No," he said; "my courage has been mended up after
a fashion, with the rest of me; but it was fairly broken then, like a
smashed tea-cup; that's the horrible part of it. Ah---- Yes; well, I was
telling you about the poker.

"It was--let me see--nearly thirteen years ago, in Lima. I told you
Peru was a delightful country to live in; but it's not quite so nice for
people that happen to be at low water, as I was. I had been down in the
Argentine, and then in Chili, tramping the country and starving, mostly;
and had come up from Valparaiso as odd-man on a cattle-boat. I couldn't
get any work in Lima itself, so I went down to the docks,--they're
at Callao, you know,--to try there. Well of course in all those
shipping-ports there are low quarters where the sea-faring people
congregate; and after some time I got taken on as servant in one of the
gambling hells there. I had to do the cooking and billiard-marking, and
fetch drink for the sailors and their women, and all that sort of thing.
Not very pleasant work; still I was glad to get it; there was at least
food and the sight of human faces and sound of human tongues--of a
kind. You may think that was no advantage; but I had just been down with
yellow fever, alone in the outhouse of a wretched half-caste shanty, and
the thing had given me the horrors. Well, one night I was told to put
out a tipsy Lascar who was making himself obnoxious; he had come ashore
and lost all his money and was in a bad temper. Of course I had to obey
if I didn't want to lose my place and starve; but the man was twice as
strong as I--I was not twenty-one and as weak as a cat after the fever.
Besides, he had the poker."

He paused a moment, glancing furtively at her; then went on:

"Apparently he intended to put an end to me altogether; but somehow he
managed to scamp his work--Lascars always do if they have a chance; and
left just enough of me not smashed to go on living with."

"Yes, but the other people, could they not interfere? Were they all
afraid of one Lascar?"

He looked up and burst out laughing.

"THE OTHER PEOPLE? The gamblers and the people of the house? Why, you
don't understand! They were negroes and Chinese and Heaven knows what;
and I was their servant--THEIR PROPERTY. They stood round and enjoyed
the fun, of course. That sort of thing counts for a good joke out there.
So it is if you don't happen to be the subject pra