Whilst we have been sauntering around, we have noticed one particular kind of building that differs from all the others about it. It is not a private dwelling-house, and yet it has none of the signs that it is a shop, where goods of some special description may be purchased. Its front is not open like those next door to it so that the public can see what is going on inside. Its aim, indeed, seems to be to conceal from the passers-by the movements of the people within, whilst at the same time intimating that any one that likes to enter may do so freely. Every window is closed up so that one can get no glimpse of what is going on behind them. The door, indeed, stands wide open, but hanging about two feet in front of it is a bamboo screen that effectually guards the secrets of the house. Any attempt to peer inside will be ineffectual, for the utmost that can be seen beyond the sentinel screen is the posts of the door that are but the outer works of the fortress beyond. As we stand speculating why this house and others that we have seen of a similar character during our stroll should be so different from the rest, a man approaches in a furtive manner, with head cast down as though he were ashamed, and glides in a ghost-like manner into the opening behind the screen and vanishes into the dark interior. We caught but a glimpse of him, but what we did see did not favourably impress us. His clothes were greasy and dilapidated looking, and his face wore a leaden hue as though his blood had been transmuted by some chemical process into a colour that nature would never recognize as a product of her own. He was a man, we should judge, that we should not care to have much to do with, for there seemed to be a shadow on his life, and he was not anxious to get into the sunshine where men could have a good look at him. Hardly has he disappeared when a man still in the prime of life, with slightly stooping shoulders and the same dull colour in his cheeks and on his lips, advances quickly to the screen, dives behind it, and except for a momentary shadow that falls upon the doorway, disappears at once from sight. We begin to speculate as to what kind of a place this is that pretends to have a huge secret from the public, and what is the nature of the goods that it supplies to men that have one characteristic at least that seems common to them all. It cannot be a pawn shop, for the two men had no parcels with them, and besides, the "Uncle" in China does this business openly and hangs no screen in front of his door to conceal his operations from the public. Whilst these thoughts run through our own mind, a young fellow of about twenty hurries up with an impetuous rush as though he were racing to catch a train, and after a quick glance up and down the street plunges behind the screen and is gone.