I followed him into the next block, then down a narrow, dark lane between buildings and up shaky stairs where he knocked on a door. An old man admitted us and barred the door. The place was a big loft. The foggy air was hot, stifling, and laden with every Chinese smell—opium, tobacco, fish, and damp clothes drying. Chinamen were cooking, eating, smoking hop, gambling, or sleeping in curtained bunks that lined the walls. My conductor was evidently a considerable person. Silence fell on the room, and many Chinamen stood still in submissive attitudes. He threw a mangy old cat out of a broken chair near the big stove in the middle of the room and told me to sit. After a few jerky gutturals to the old man that let us in, he disappeared in the haze of smoke. The gambling and chatter started again. Some of the younger Chinese passed and looked at me curiously. I sat by the stove and watched the scene with interest. An old Chinaman—he must have been sixty—shuffled by me hastily with a hop layout and spread it in a near-by bunk. He was shaking with the “yen yen,” the hop habit. His withered, clawlike hands trembled as he feverishly rolled the first “pill,” a large one. His burning eyes devoured it. Half cooked, he stuck the pill in its place and turning his pipe to the lamp greedily sucked the smoke into his lungs. Now, with a long, grateful exhalation, the smoke is discharged, the cramped limbs relax and straighten out, the smoker heaves a sigh of satisfaction, and the hands, no longer shaking, turn with surer touch to another “pill.” This is smaller, rolled and shaped with more care, better cooked, and inhaled with a slow “long draw.” Each succeeding pill is smaller, more carefully browned over the lamp, and smoked with increased pleasure. At last the little horn container, the “hop toy,” is empty. The last pill is finished with perfect stroke and flourish, the bamboo pipe is put aside with caressing touch, the lamp blown out with gentle breath, and the devotee, sighing softly, curls himself up for pleasant dreams. I was so intent on watching the old man’s magic transformation from a shattered wreck into a sleeping cherub that the boss Chinaman’s return escaped me. He touched my shoulder and I followed him into a small room in a rear corner of the loft, where I found Chew Chee. He shook my hand awkwardly. His English was almost forgotten. All he could say was, “You good man, you good man.” The boss Chinaman was full of business. He drew out some American gold pieces. “I pay you. Chew Chee pay me some time.” I explained to him that I had not come for money; that I was there to see Chew Chee and make friends of his friends, and that if I ever needed money or help I would ask for it and expect it. “Well, then,” he said, returning the gold to his pocket, “I give you China letter to my company man. You come my store to-morrow night.”