Nobody troubles very much about Chinatown, except the authorities, and their interference is but perfunctory. The yellow men, after all, are, as Prologue to "Pagliacci" observes, but men like you, for joy or sorrow, the same broad heaven above them, the same wide world before them. They are but men like you, though the sanitary officials may doubt it. They _will_ sleep six and seven in one dirty bed, and no law of London can change their ways. Anyway, they are peaceful, agreeable people, who ask nothing but to be allowed to go about their business and to be happy in their own way. They are shy birds, and detest being looked at, or talked to, or photographed, or written about. They don't want white men in their restaurants, or nosing about their places. They carry this love of secrecy to strange lengths. Not so long ago a press photographer set out boldly to get pictures of Chinatown. He marched to the mouth of Limehouse Causeway, through which, in the customary light of grey and rose, many amiable creatures were gliding, levelled his nice new Kodak, and got--an excellent picture of the Causeway after the earthquake. The entire street in his plate was deserted. Certain impressionable people--Cook's tourists and Civil Servants--return from the East mumbling vague catchwords--mystic, elusive, subtle, haunting, alluring. These London Chinese are neither subtle nor mystic. They are mostly materialist and straightforward; and, once you can gain their confidence, you will find yourself wonderfully at home. But it has to be gained, for, as I have said, they are shy, and were you to try to join a game of cards on a short acquaintance ... well, it would be easier to drop in for a cigarette with King George. To get into a Grosvenor Square mansion on a ball night is a comparatively easy matter: swank and an evening suit will do it; nothing very exclusive about those people. But the people of Limehouse, and, indeed, of any slum or foreign quarter, are exclusive; and to get into a Poplar dope-house on bargain night demands the exercise of more Oriental ingenuity than most of us possess.