All things considered, to tell him my story seemed the best course to pursue. He would learn very little that mattered or that he could not find out without me; whereas it was quite possible that if, in return, I could induce him to speak of the "cause" to which he was so warmly attached, and in the interests of which he was ready to stop at nothing, I might, on the contrary, learn something which would be very well worth the knowing. "I'll tell you my story," I bargained, "if you in return will tell me what is this cause which you say you have at heart. Who knows that it might not be a cause with which I myself sympathise, and might wish to befriend?" "I agree," he said quietly. "But first I think we'll shut the door and have a light. I've been in this place before. If I can help it, I never enter any place without finding out all I can about it beforehand. There's a gas-jet, and if you'll wait a moment, I'll light it. It can't be seen from the outside." Commencing with the invitation to write an article on the opium den, I very briefly narrated what had befallen me, keeping back nothing except my love for Kate, and the fact of the dream-tableaux, neither of which seemed to me to come within my bargain. He listened without a comment, though he now and then interpolated a pointed question. When I had done, he lit a cigarette, and began to pace backward and forward. "Mr. Rissler," he said abruptly, after a short silence, "were you ever poor?" "Ever poor?" I laughed. "If you had asked me if I were ever rich, I might, by thinking hard, remember a time when I had a few pounds in hand. But ever poor? My dear sir, I can't recall a time when I was ever anything else." He nodded gravely.