"Don't like to 'ear about your wicked past, do you?" continued Bill. "Wicked old yellow-faced 'eathen! Remember the 'dive' in 'Frisco, Pidgin? _Wot_ a rough 'ouse! Remember when I come in--full up I was: me back teeth well under water--an' you tried to Shanghai me?" "You cutee palaber. All damn lie," muttered the Chinaman. "Ho! a lie is it?" roared the other. "Wot about me wakin' up all of a tremble aboard o' the old _Nancy Lee_--aboard of a blasted wind-jammer! Me--a fireman! Wot about it? Wasn't that Shanghaiin'? Blighter! _An'_ not a 'oat' in me pocket--not a 'bean'! Broke to the wide an' aboard of a old wind-jammer wot was a coffin-ship--a coffin-ship she was; an' 'er old man was the devil's father-in-law. Ho! lies! I _don't_ think!" "You cutee palaber!" chattered Ah-Fang-Fu, busy with the pipe. "You likee too much chin-chin. You make nice piece bhobbery." "Not a 'bean'," continued Bill reminiscently--"not a 'oat.'" He sat up violently. "Even me pipe an' baccy was gone!" he shouted. "You'd even pinched me pipe an' baccy! You'd pinch the whiskers off a blind man, _you_ would, Pidgin! 'And over the dope. Thank Gawd somebody's still the right stuff!" Suddenly, from a bunk on the left of Gaston Max came a faint cry. "Ah! He has bitten me!" "'Ullo!" said Bill--"wotcher bin given' _'im,_ Pidgin? _Chandu_ or hydrerphobia?" Ah-Fang-Fu crossed and handed him the pipe. "One piecee pipee. No more hab." Bill grasped the pipe eagerly and raised it to his lips. Ah-Fang-Fu returned unmoved to his Patience and silence reclaimed the den, only broken by the inarticulate murmuring and the lapping of the tide. "A genuine customer!" whispered Max. "Ah!" came again, more faintly--"he ... has ... bitten ... me." "Blimey!" said Bill in a drowsy voice--"'eave the chair at 'im, Pidgin." Stuart was about to speak when Gaston Max furtively grasped his arm. "Ssh!" he whispered. "Do not move, but look ... at the top of the stair!" Stuart turned his eyes. On the platform at the head of the stairs a Hindu was standing! "Chunda Lal!" whispered Max. "Prepare for--anything!" "Chunda Lal descended slowly. Ah-Fang-Fu continued to play Patience. The Hindu stood behind him and began to speak in a voice of subdued fervour and with soft Hindu modulations. "Why do you allow them, strangers, coming here to-night!" Ah-Fang-Fu continued complacently to arrange the cards. "S'pose hab gotchee pidgin allee samee Chunda Lal hab got? Fo-Hi no catchee buy bled and cheese for Ah-Fang-Fu. He"--nodding casually in the direction of Bill Bean--"plitty soon all blissful." "Be very careful, Ah-Fang-Fu," said Chunda Lal tensely. He lowered his voice. "Do you forget so soon what happen last week?" "No sabby." "Some one comes here--we do not know how close he comes; perhaps he comes in--and he is of the _police."_ Ah-Fang-Fu shuffled uneasily in his chair. "No police chop for Pidgin!" he muttered. "Same feller tumble in liver?"