People feel quite sure his drink contains some more sinister ingredient from the Malay peninsula. And he it is who sees to it that all the business offices are equipped with coffee urns that whistle through the late afternoon:—the custom of mixing business and coffee having originated with his great great grandmother, a famous local stenographer, who in the end became lady mayor, through her stenographers’ guild. Politics and coffee are hereditary with Kusuko. In the legitimate organization which ministers to this drinking habit, Kusuko has concealed his henchmen, who bring him all needed information and carry abroad all necessary orders. And they have a considerable opportunity to serve him. Drinking begins in the offices at 4.30 P. M. and in the more fastidious business groups with many forms, till it is near to resembling the Japanese tea-ceremony. Stenographers, some austere and some luxurious, mingle with women political leaders, such as Orator Carrie Moore, Portia, the Singing Aviator, and others. These help materially to make up the sum of grace and bedevilment of the business and political day. A little later people who are still restless and do not want to go home drift off toward the motion picture houses, or the drug stores or the coffee houses of Kusuko. As to the coffee houses, I make my tours through many and find these places extraordinarily varied in design, though the same general average of a crowd is in most of them. There is a Chinese-looking place called: “The Opium Fish.” There is a place hung with copies of Velasques, Goya, Sorolla, and others, called: “The Spanish Gypsy.” This is a place quieter than most. Then there is a kind of a Jazz emporium with copper and brass decorations, called “The Whing Whang Tree.” There are two other places that specialize in chop suey, called: “The Mock Duck” and “The Fire Cracker King” and then I loaf in “The Pig and the Goose,” and “The Sword of the Skallawag,” etc. In these last two on slightly raised platforms the Malay storytellers sit cross-legged. They unroll the beautiful ensnaring legends of the Malay peninsula and the islands around it. These storytellers appear occasionally in some of the other coffee houses, also, along with negro singers, etc. And now comes Kusuko’s last touch, where he has completely replaced the old political functions of the American saloon, as an acceptable harness for the social brigands. There is always some allusion in the coffee houses, some implication, that the next real thing to do will be dancing, later in the evening, in wonderful Yellow Dance Halls. These are also owned by Kusuko and are the very keystone of his system. I follow the drifting tide of jolly good fellows several evenings and it leads me inevitably to the halls before midnight.