The place was still the same. She remembered it well--the square room, with its whitewashed walls, discoloured and scrawled over with vile words and viler caricatures; the great open brick fireplace in which, always smouldered a handful of fire; the filthy mattresses laid out at the far end, on which the customers were wont to sprawl and sleep; and pervading all, the mephitic atmosphere illumined dimly by the swinging petrol-lamp set in a bracket over the fireplace. A Lascar and a Chinaman were lying there like corpses, narcotised by the drug, and dreaming God knows what dreams of paradise. Close to them lay a European, sallow-faced and ragged, and restless for his pipe, which was in course of preparation by the lady of the house. She crouched on the floor near a lamp, twisting and stirring the brown confection with a knitting needle, over a clear flame. As it frizzled and spat, she held a long-stemmed pipe for its reception. Though thus engrossed, she raised her grizzled head as Miriam entered. The boy who had opened the door, sank back into the corner behind it, and rolled himself into a ball like a doormouse. Mother Mandarin rasped out her welcome. "Eh, lovey, dovey, deary, and is it you, swelley? Oh, I know'd so well you'd come. Didn't I dream of 'awks kerryin' stones last night, an' if that ain't you with money for your poor ole aunty, she ain't the poor thing as wants it. Come, pretty ducky, chuck us the blunt!" A small worm of a woman this, with a wrinkled face like a baboon, and eyes piercing as gimlets, and a mass of white hair like spun silk. She wore a dress of old green stuff, threadbare now, patched and discoloured. A dingy red shawl was drawn tightly over her red spare shoulders and across her chest--a woman full of evil, saturated with vice, and exhaling it so powerfully as to repel. Miriam could not repress a shiver, but she addressed herself at once to the business she had in hand, being only too anxious to have done with it and get away. "I have come for Jabez," she said. "Where is he?" "Lor' bless you, lovey dearie, he's jes' stepped out for a dram. He'll be back in no time. Wot's it you wants, sweet sweety?" "Are they awake?" asked Miriam, indicating the apparently insensate forms on the mattresses. "One of 'em is, lovey, he 'asn't had 'is yet. But he's noo to the pipes, yer see, ducky, and it won't take long to get him orf. Here, dearie, this is as strong as strong." The man, who had thrown an indifferent glance at Miriam, clutched the pipe and lay back on the bed to indulge in it. "He'll be off directly, pretty dovey," droned Mother Mandarin, loosening his collar; "he's noo to it." One of the Lascars emitted a horrible sound and rolled over. "'E's a dreamin', yuss! I knows they're 'untin' you, pore 'eathen. Don't you let 'em catch you, dearie!" "What are you talking about?" inquired Miriam, looking at the motionless figures. Mother Mandarin stoked the fire.