on Chinese soil, considering the different standards that
obtained in each, so he stood now, figuratively, on the boundary line
of an ethical problem and swayed mentally first towards one side and
then the other. The irony of it, the humour of it, appealed to him. It
seemed so insanely just--just what you might expect. He had been
asked--that was too definite a word--to forego his activities for a
few brief weeks. And during those few brief weeks he could repay
himself, week by week, on Friday nights----

He had been merely asked--too strong a word--the suggestion had been
merely hinted at--he balanced himself back and forth over the problem.
If his efforts during the next few weeks should prove fruitless,
possible enough, considering the wily race he was dealing with----And
in exchange, well, once a week on Friday night, he could slip outside
the boundaries of the Concession to a large, foreign gambling house
kept by and for his own people. By his own people, the Europeans, who
employed him to eradicate gambling from amongst the Chinese. Do you
wonder that he shifted himself back and forth, morally, first from
this point of view, then to that? His own people who objected to
gaming, when it involved the loss of their servants' liveries. But
they had no such scruples when it came to their own pleasure.
Therefore, for their own pleasure, careless of the inconsistency, they
had established a very fine place of their own just outside the
boundaries of the foreign Concession. Lawson had heard of the place
before--the most famous, the most notorious on the China Coast. Kept
by the son of a parson, so he had been told, a University graduate.
Once, ten years ago, he had gone there and lost a month's pay in an
evening. But now it was to be different. He could go there now, every
Friday night, and reap the reward of his inability to discover Chinese
dens within the Concession.

For nearly an hour he remained undecided, then determined to test the
offer made him--but offer was too strong a word. And his salary was
so meagre, so abominably small. And the people in the big houses would
have none of him, they never invited him, he was left so alone, to
himself. He was intensely homesick. Therefore, still on the boundary
line, he went to the telephone and called up a certain number. In a
confident manner he asked for a limousine. After which he got into his
overcoat, muffled himself up well around the ears and nose, for the
air outs