We had walked some distance before we reached the house Pharos desired to visit. From its outward appearance it might have been a small drinking-shop in the daytime; now, however, every window was closely shuttered, and not a ray of light showed through chink or cranny. Approaching the door he knocked four times upon it, whereupon it was opened on a chain for a few inches. A face looked through the aperture thus created, and Pharos, moving a little closer, said something in a whisper to it. "Beg pardon, sir," said the woman, for a woman I soon discovered it was. "I didn't know as it was you. I'll undo the chain. Is the gentleman with you safe?" "Quite safe," Pharos replied. "You need have no fear of him. He is my friend." "In you come, then," said the woman to me, my character being thus vouched for, and accordingly in I stepped. Dirty as were the streets outside, the house in which we now stood more than equalled them. The home of Captain Wisemann in Hamburg, which I had up to that time thought the filthiest I had ever seen, was nothing to it. Taking the candle in her hand, the old woman led us along the passage toward another door. Before this she paused and rang a bell, the handle of which was cleverly concealed in the woodwork. Almost instantly it was opened, and we entered a room the like of which I had never seen or dreamt of before. Its length was fully thirty feet, its width possibly fifteen. On the wall above the fireplace was a gas bracket, from the burner of which a large flame was issuing with a hissing noise. In the center of the room was a table, and seated round it were at least twenty men and women, who, at the moment of our entering, were engaged upon a game the elements of which I did not understand. On seeing us the players sprang to their feet with one accord, and a scramble ensued for the money upon the table. A scene of general excitement followed, which might very well have ended in the gas being turned out and our finding ourselves upon the floor with knives between our ribs, had not the old woman who had introduced us called out that there was no need for alarm, and added, with an oath--what might in Pharos's case possibly have been true, but in mine was certainly not--that we had been there hundreds of times before, and were proper sort o' gents. Thereupon Pharos contributed a sovereign to be spent in liquid refreshment, and when our healths had been drunk with a variety of toasts intended to be complimentary, our presence was forgotten, and the game once more proceeded. One thing was self-evident: there was no lack of money among those present, and when a member of the company had not the wherewithal to continue the gamble, he in most cases produced a gold watch, a ring, or some other valuable from his pocket, and handed it to a burly ruffian at the head of the table, who advanced him an amount upon it which nine times out of ten failed to meet with his approval.