Beyond the barber shop was a stairway leading to the depths, from which the odors of opium and a sickening compound of indescribable smells floated on the morning air. Brown men could be seen through the smoke and darkness, moving silently as though in dreams, or listlessly gazing at nothing. Here was a shop of many goods, with fish and fruits exposed to tempt the palates and purses of the passer: Chinese nut-fruits, dried and smoked to please the Chinese taste, candied cocoanut chips that form the most popular of Chinese confections, with roots and nuts and preserves in variety, appealing temptingly to the eyes of the Chinese who passed. Behind, were boxes and bales and cans, big chests and little chests, bright chests and dingy chests, in endless confusion. The blackened walls and ceilings gave such an air of age that the shop seemed as though it might have come out of the ancient Chinese cities as a relic of the days of Kublai Khan. Shoe factories, clothing factories, and cigar factories, were scattered along the street, with wares made and displayed in the American fashion, and here and there, as if in mockery, hung signs that bore the legend "White Labor Goods." The little brown men sewed and hammered and smoothed and polished and smoked and chaffered and traded--the great hive of Chinatown was astir; and over all rose the murmur of the strange sing-song tongue that finds its home on the banks of the Yellow River. Here and there a white face showed. But where it belonged to a dweller in Waverly Place it was sodden, brutal, depraved. Waverly Place got only the dregs and seepage of the white race, and such as dwelt there boasted of an intimate knowledge and possession of the vices of three continents. Half-way up the block from Clay Street I paused before a dingy doorway. The building had been one of the substantial structures of early San Francisco, but the coolie occupation had orientalized it with a coating of dirt and a mask of decay. "This is an unpromising place to look for the richest Chinaman in San Francisco," was my mental comment. "But it is surely the number given me." As I moved to enter the door, a stout, well-fed Chinaman, with a pockmarked face, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his thick blue blouse, put his body in the way. "What you wan’?" he asked, with a trace of aggression in his voice. "I want see Big Sam," I said. The Chinaman’s face took on the blank, stolid look of utter ignorance. "No sabby Big Sam. No Big Sam heah." "Nonsense! You know Big Sam. Every Chinaman in San Francisco knows Big Sam. This is where I’m told he lives. I’ve got to see him." "No sabby Big Sam heah. One Big Sam he live Stockton St’eet, one Big Sam he live Oakyland. You go Stockton St’eet, you go Oakyland. No Big Sam heah." "See here, John," I said, "I’ve got to see Big Sam, and I know he’s here, and I’m going to see him. So get out of the way."