u spalpeen! You pig-faced
bag o' fat! What d'ee mane by it, Chok-foo? Didn't I say I'd give you
as much baccy as ye could chaw or smoke an ye'd only kape out o' this
place? Come along wid ye!"

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that the man who spoke, and who
immediately collared and dragged Chok-foo away, was none other than our
friend Rooney Machowl. That worthy had been sent to China in advance of
the party of divers with his wife and baby--for in the event of success
he said he'd be able to "affoord it," and in the event of failure he
meant to try his luck in "furrin' parts," and would on no account leave
either wife or chick behind him.

On his arrival a double misfortune awaited him. First he found that his
employer, Edgar Berrington, was laid up with fever, in the house of an
English friend, and could not be spoken to, or even seen; and second,
the lodging in which he had put up caught fire the second night after
his arrival, and was burnt to the ground, with all its contents,
including nearly the whole of his diving apparatus. Fortunately, the
unlucky Irishman saved his wife and child and money, the last having
been placed in a leathern belt made for the purpose, and worn night and
day round his waist. Being a resolute and hopeful man, Rooney
determined to hunt up a diving apparatus of some sort, if such was to
be found in China, and he succeeded. He found, in an old
iron-and-rag-store sort of place, a very ancient head-piece and dress,
which were in good repair though of primitive construction.
Fortunately, his own pumps and air-pipes, having been deposited in an
out-house, had escaped the general conflagration.

Rooney was a man of contrivance and resource. He soon fitted the pump
to the new dress and found that it worked well, though the helmet was
destitute of the modern regulating valves under the diver's control, and
he knew that it must needs therefore leave the diver who should use it
very much at the mercy of the men who worked the pumps.

After the fire, Rooney removed with his family to the house of a Chinese
labourer named Chok-foo, whose brother, Ram-stam, dwelt with him. They
were both honest hard-working men, but Chok-foo was beginning, as we
have seen, to fall under the baleful influence of opium-smoking.
Ram-stam may be said to have been a teetotaler in this respect. They
were both men of humble spirit.

Chok-foo took the destruction of his pipe and the rough collaring tha