tions suggest
always the mystery of the East. About that corner swept the procession
of the Good Lady, priests before, women worshippers behind. The
priests set up a falsetto chant, the banner-bearers lifted their
staves, and the parti-colored mass moved down on them.

"It's like a flower-bed on a landslide!" exclaimed Eleanor.

Mark Heath gravely pulled out his left cuff and took rapid notes with
a pencil.

"That goes into the story--anything more up your sleeve like that?"

"Wasn't it good? Eleanor is always thinking up clever things to say,"
Kate came in. Her voice was rather flat.

At the edge of the gutter where they stood, a Chinese shoemaker had
set out on a lacquer tray his offering to the gods. Red candles
bordered it, surrounding little bowls of rice and sweetmeats, a slice
of roast pig, a Chinese lily. As the banners approached, certain
devout coolies found room on the sidewalk to prostrate themselves.
Eleanor, absorbed now in a poetic appreciation of all this glory of
color and spirit, felt a movement beside her. She looked down. The
shoemaker was flat on his forehead beside his offering.

"Would you per-ceive that Chink grovel," spoke the voice of Bertram
Chester.

Before Eleanor could turn on him, he was addressing the shoemaker.

"Feel a heap better, Charlie? Say, who-somalla you? Brush off your
knees!" The Chinese, if he understood, paid no more attention than he
paid to the lamp post in his path. Gathering up his offering, he
pushed his way back through the crowd.

For the first time that evening, Eleanor became somewhat like her
normal self as she said:

"Why, this is a religious ceremony, isn't it--all this light and
color!"

"Yes," responded the personal conductor of the party, "but you have to
pinch yourself to remember it. For instance, you'll be charmed to
know that I saw one of those priests, up in front there, arrested last
week in a raid on a gambling joint. Morals haven't an awful lot to do
with this religion. Maybe that fellow on the pavement was praying that
he'd have a chance to murder his dearest enemy, and maybe he was
applying for luck in a lottery. Empress of Chinatown, up yon frazzled
flight of stairs lurks the New York Daytime Lottery. The agents of
said lottery are playing ducks and drakes right now with the pay of
the printers on the imperial bulletin which I have the honor to
represent. Some day, your grand vizier and most humble servant is
going to do a Sunday story