tly but firmly pushed him back to the beginning.

"Start with the story of the lacquer bowl," he said, talking very slowly
and clearly. "We want to hear what happened about that first."

The mention of the subject of lacquer threw Absalom once more into a
state of panic, but as his story progressed he became more sure of
himself, and looked up, forgetting his fear in the excitement of having
a really remarkable story to tell, that was listened to by Sahibs with
intent interest.

In tearful, stumbling words he admitted that he and Leh Shin's assistant
had been friends, and that those evil communications that corrupt not
only good manners but good morals had worked with disastrous results
upon him. With his brown knuckles to his protruding eyes, he admitted,
further, that he had stolen the gold lacquer bowl from the drugged and
drunken seaman, and that Leh Shin's assistant had plundered him of more
than half his rightful share of the profit. What remained over, he
protested, he intended to give to the "Missen," testifying to the fact
that his conscience was causing him uneasiness and that his natural
superstition made him adopt means, not unknown to other financiers, of
squaring things by a donation to a charitable object.

He went on to explain that Mhtoon Pah had required him to come back late
by an unfrequented alley, from where his master himself had admitted him
into the basement of the shop. There was nothing altogether unusual
about this, it appeared, as Mhtoon Pah was very strange in his ways at
times. He cooked his own food for fear of poison, and was constantly
suspecting some indefinite enemy of designs upon his life. What was
unusual was the fact that he had been taken at once into the small cell,
and that, once there, Mhtoon Pah had behaved like a madman.

Absalom could recall no coherent account of what the curio dealer had
told him. He had spoken to him of murder, and told him that the Chinamen
in the Quarter, headed by Leh Shin, were looking for him to kill him,
and that, for his safety, he must remain hidden away. Mhtoon Pah told
him that he would protect him, and that he would produce evidence to
have Leh Shin hanged, and that once he was dead he would then emerge
again, but not until then. He told him how Chinamen killed their
victims, and his fears and terrors communicated themselves to the boy,
who delivered himself up to bondage without resistance.

For weeks Absalom dragged out a miserable exis