e stories were
told in Chinatown.

As Bill Jones, A.B., my friend, Paul Harley, was well known to Ma
Lorenzo as he was well known to many others in that strange colony which
clusters round the London docks. I sometimes enjoyed the privilege of
accompanying my friend on a tour of investigation through the weird
resorts which abound in that neighbourhood, and, indeed, we had been
returning from one of these Baghdad nights when our present adventure
had been thrust upon us. Assuming a wild and boisterous manner which he
had at command:

"'Urry up, Ma!" said Harley, entering without ceremony; "I want to
introduce my pal Jim 'ere to old Kwen Lung, and make it all right for
him before I sail."

Ma Lorenzo, who was half Portuguese, replied in her peculiar accent:

"This no time to come waking me up out of bed!"

But Harley, brushing past her, was already inside the stuffy little
room, and I hastened to follow.

"Kwen Lung!" shouted my friend loudly. "Where are you? Brought a friend
to see you."

"Kwen Lung no hab," came the complaining tones of Ma Lorenzo from behind
us.

It was curious to note how long association with the Chinese had
resulted in her catching the infection of that pidgin-English which is a
sort of esperanto in all Asiatic quarters.

"Eh!" cried my friend, pushing open a door on the right of the passage
and stumbling down three worn steps into a very evil-smelling room.
"Where is he?"

"Go play fan-tan. Not come back."

Ma Lorenzo, having relocked the street door, had rejoined us, and as I
followed my friend down into the dim and uninviting apartment she stood
at the top of the steps, hands on hips, regarding us.

The place, which was quite palpably an opium den, must have disappointed
anyone familiar with the more ornate houses of Chinese vice in San
Francisco and elsewhere. The bare floor was not particularly clean, and
the few decorations which the room boasted were garishly European for
the most part. A deep divan, evidently used sometimes as a bed, occupied
one side of the room, and just to the left of the steps reposed the only
typically Oriental object in the place.

It was a strange thing to see in so sordid a setting; a great gilded
joss, more than life-size, squatting, hideous, upon a massive pedestal;
a figure fit for some native temple but strangely out of place in that
dirty little Limehouse abode.

I had never before visited Kwen Lung's, but the fame of his golden joss
had rea