verage to his lips. With his eyes but slightly opened, and with
all his weight resting upon the arm of the Egyptian, he gulped the hot
tea, and noted that it was of exquisite quality.

THEINE is an antidote to opium, and M. Max accordingly became somewhat
restored, and lay staring at the Oriental, and blinking his eyes
foolishly.

Said, leaving the tea service upon the little table, glided from the
room. Something else the Egyptian had left upon the tray in addition to
the dainty vessels of porcelain; it was a steel ring containing a dozen
or more keys. Most of these keys lay fanwise and bunched together, but
one lay isolated and pointing in an opposite direction. It was a Yale
key--the key of the door!

Silently as a shadow, M. Max glided into the bathroom, and silently,
swiftly, returned, carrying a cake of soap. Three clear, sharp
impressions, he secured of the Yale, the soap leaving no trace of the
operation upon the metal. He dropped the precious soap tablet into his
open bag.

In a state of semi-torpor, M. Max sprawled upon the bed for ten minutes
or more, during which time, as he noted, the door remained ajar.
Then there entered a figure which seemed wildly out of place in the
establishment of Ho-Pin. It was that of a butler, most accurately
dressed and most deferential in all his highly-trained movements.
His dark hair was neatly brushed, and his face, which had a
pinched appearance, was composed in that
"if-it-is-entirely-agreeable-to-you-Sir" expression, typical of his
class.

The unhealthy, yellow skin of the new arrival, which harmonized so ill
with the clear whites of his little furtive eyes, interested M. Max
extraordinarily. M. Max was blinking like a week-old kitten, and one
could have sworn that he was but hazily conscious of his surroundings;
whereas in reality he was memorizing the cranial peculiarities of the
new arrival, the shape of his nose, the disposition of his ears; the
exact hue of his eyes; the presence of a discolored tooth in his lower
jaw, which a fish-like, nervous trick of opening and closing the mouth
periodically revealed.

"Good morning, sir!" said the valet, gently rubbing his palms together
and bending over the bed.

M. Max inhaled deeply, stared in glassy fashion, but in no way indicated
that he had heard the words.

The valet shook him gently by the shoulder.

"Good morning, sir. Shall I prepare your bath?"

"She is a serpent!" muttered M. Max, tossing one arm weakl