hat "the _old man_ is
now running the show, and that, if _he_ doesn't jump from Calcutta
inside a week, there will be trouble on the floor." Meanwhile the
landlord mixes the drinks with his own dirty hands, and reflects
continually upon the villainy of a certain American third mate, who
having borrowed five dollars from him, was sufficiently ungrateful as to
catch typhoid fever and die without either repaying the loan, or, what
was worse, settling his account for the board and lodging received.
Manuel, for this was the proprietor's name, had one or two recollections
of a similar sort, but not many, for, as a rule, he is a careful fellow,
and experience having taught him the manners and idiosyncrasies of his
customers, he generally managed to emerge from his transactions with
credit to himself, and what was of much more importance, a balance on
the right side of his ledger.

The time of which I am now writing was the middle of March, the hottest
and, in every respect, the worst month of the year in Singapore. Day and
night the land was oppressed by the same stifling heat, a sweltering
calidity possessing the characteristics of a steam-laundry, coupled with
those of the stokehole of an ocean liner in the Red Sea. Morning, noon,
and night, the quarter in which the Hotel of the Three Desires was
situated was fragrant with the smell of garbage and Chinese tobacco; a
peculiar blend of perfume, which once smelt is not to be soon forgotten.
Everything, even the bottles on the shelves in the bar, had a greasy
feel about them, and the mildew on one's boots when one came to put them
on in the morning, was a triumph in the way of _erysiphaceous fungi_.
Singapore at this season of the year is neither good for man nor beast;
in this sweeping assertion, of course I except the yellow man, upon whom
it seems to exercise no effect whatsoever.

It was towards evening, and, strange to relate, the Hotel of the Three
Desires was for once practically empty. This was the more extraordinary
for the reason that the customers who usually frequented it, _en route_
from one end of the earth to the other, are not affected by seasons.
Midwinter was to them the same as midsummer, provided they did their
business, or got their ships, and by those ships, or that business,
received their wages. That those hard-earned wages should eventually
find themselves in the pocket of the landlord of the Three Desires, was
only in the natural order of things, and,