he European from Hong Kong as well as the native
Portuguese and Chinese. Whatever fault the visitor finds, on moral
grounds, with these houses he must admit the fact that they are quiet
and orderly, while the picturesqueness of the life within them and that
peculiar glamour which varnishes all that pertains to a great gambling
hall where fortune shows herself directly face to face with us, has a
charm which hides the immorality from even the most straight-laced
Puritan.

One of these houses was the favourite and nightly resort of Dom Pedro,
where he played high or low according to the state of his finances at
the moment. Dom Amaral, though himself a devotee of the fan-tan table,
observed with fear this controlling passion of his son which he believed
would some day destroy the comfortable fortune he had amassed with so
many years of labour.

Adams would have certainly preferred to spend the whole evening in the
family circle, but Dom Pedro urged him with so much, and such unusual
kindness to accompany him to the gambling house that he consented, and
at about eleven o'clock the two young men left the Praya and walked into
the town beneath the soft lights of the oil lamps. The streets were
deserted as usual, here and there a policeman, hooded like a pilgrim,
sauntered leisurely along, or the Chinese watchman with drum and
clapper woke the echoes of the lonely ways warning thieves of his
approach.

The only illuminated houses were fan-tan houses and these presently
became numerous; now and then music was heard but not of a very
seductive kind. Into one of the largest and most gaily decorated houses,
Dom Pedro and Robert Adams went, climbing to the second floor by stairs
bordered with shrubs in huge Chinese pots.

The main playing room contained several tables or counters arranged
along the walls, behind which sat the croupiers; at one of these Dom
Pedro stopped. On the table was a plate of metal divided into quarters
of about a foot square by deep cut lines crossing it, each square being
marked in Chinese characters indicating one, two, three and four. The
croupiers rattled a pile of bright brass coins, with square holes in
them, called cash; then as Dom Pedro made a sign that he was about to
play, the croupier drew away a part of them under a bowl and Dom Pedro
placed his wager on number three. The croupier with a bamboo wand then
counted out the remaining cash one at a time in sets of four, until
finally there were