Said peeped in at the door. He no longer wore his chauffeur's livery, but was arrayed in a white linen robe, red-sashed, and wore loose, red slippers; a tarboosh perched upon his shaven skull. Pushing the door widely open, he entered with a tray upon which was spread a substantial breakfast. “Hurryup!” he muttered, as one word; wherewith he departed again. Soames seated himself at the little table upon which the tray rested, and endeavored to eat. His usual appetite had departed with his identity; Mr. Lucas was a poor, twitching being of raw nerves and internal qualms. He emptied the coffee-pot, however, and smoked a cigarette which he found in his case. Said reappeared. “Ta'ala!” he directed. Soames having learnt that that term was evidently intended as an invitation to follow Said, rose and followed, dumbly. He was conducted along the matting-lined corridor to the left; and now, where formerly he had seen a blank wall, he saw an open door! Passing this, he discovered himself in the cave of the golden dragon. Ho-Pin, dressed in a perfectly fitting morning coat and its usual accompaniments, received him with a mirthless smile. “Good mowrning!” he said; “I twrust your bwreakfast was satisfactowry?” “Quite, sir,” replied Soames, mechanically, and as he might have replied to Mr. Leroux. “Said will show you to a wroom,” continued Ho-Pin, “where you will find a gentleman awaiting you. You will valet him and perfowrm any other services which he may wrequire of you. When he departs, you will clean the wroom and adjoining bath-wroom, and put it into thowrough order for an incoming tenant. In short, your duties in this wrespect will be identical to those which formerly you perfowrmed at sea. There is one important diffewrence: your name is Lucas, and you will answer no questions.” The metallic voice seemed to reach Soames' comprehension from some place other than the room of the golden dragon--from a great distance, or as though he were fastened up in a box and were being addressed by someone outside it. “Yes, sir,” he replied. Said opened the yellow door upon the right of the room, and Soames followed him into another of the matting-lined corridors, this one running right and left and parallel with the wall of the apartment which he had just quitted. Six doors opened out of this corridor; four of them upon the side opposite to that by which he had entered, and one at either end. These doors were not readily to be detected; and the wall, at first glance, presented an unbroken appearance. But from experience, he had learned that where the strips of bamboo which overlay the straw matting formed a rectangular panel, there was a door, and by the light of the electric lamp hung in the center of the corridor, he counted six of these. Said, selecting a key from a bunch which he carried, opened one of the doors, held it ajar for Soames to enter, and permitted it to reclose behind him.