tes from the comers of his
cavernous mouth, was accompanied by two nondescript figures, who seemed
to be embarrassed more by the fact that they had been recently cleansed
and shaved than by their rough red shirts and mismatched coats and
trousers.

The man of the tilted mustachios gave brief, imperative orders to the
waiters, whose languid steps seemed to be quickened by his words as by
an electric battery. The other two sat silent, like docile dogs in
leash.

Only for an instant Baskinelli's eyes rested upon the group.

"And having tasted the food of the gods, how would you like to visit
the gods themselves?" he asked.

Pauline agreed enthusiastically. "You mean a joss house--a Chinese
church, don't you."

"Yes."

The joss house that most visitors see in Chinatown is the little one up
under the roof at the meeting of Doyers and Pell streets--at the toe
of the twisted horseshoe made by these tiny thoroughfares of black
fame, where, in spite of all the modern magic of "reform," men still
die silently in the hush of secluded corridors and women vanish into
the darkness that is worse than death.

The little joss house is interesting in the same way that an Indian
village at a State fair is interesting. Behind its gaudy staginess and
commercial appeal it still holds something of reality from which the
imagination can draw a picture of an ancient worship that has held a
race of millions in thrall for thousands of years.

But it was not to the little joss house that Signor Baskinelli guided
the party. In the little joss house the bells are pounded without
respite, the visitors come and go at all hours of the day and night--
save the few set hours when the joss sacrifices profit to true prayer.

Baskinelli took his guests to the joss house of the Golden Screens.

Save for its greater size and more splendid accoutrement, it was little
different from the other. But it was walled, in its back alley
seclusion, deep behind the outer fronts of Mott street, by a secrecy
almost sincerely sacred.

The motor cars remained far behind across the square as Baskinelli led
the party through the dismal streets and stopped before a dark
doorway.

A dim light flared behind the door and a Chinaman in American dress
admitted them.

"I am beginning to be really bored," said Pauline.

"Wait; give the wicked a chance," said Baskinelli.

They climbed three flights of dingy, narrow stairs, lighted with
flaring gas jets.

"