d
seen more, felt more, and lived more than in all of his previous
twenty-four years put together. He had learned the difference between a
"straight flush" and a "full house" under the palms at Raffles Hotel in
Singapore; he had been instructed in the ways of the wise in Shanghai by
a sophisticated attache of the French Legation, who imparted his
knowledge between sips of absinthe, as he looked down on the passing
show from a teahouse on the Bubbling Well Road; he had rapturously
listened to every sweet secret that Japan had to tell, and had left a
wake of smiles from Nagasaki to Yokohama.

In fact, in three short months he was fully qualified to pass a
connoisseur's judgment on a high-ball, to hold his own in a game of
poker, and to carry on a fairly coherent flirtation in four different
languages.

With this newly acquired wisdom he was now setting sail for home, having
accomplished his downward career with such alacrity that he did not at
all realize what had happened to him.

Nor did the return voyage promise much in the way of silent meditation
and timely repentance. The Captain placed Reynolds next to him at table,
declaring that he was like an electric fan on a sultry day; the Purser,
with the elasticity of conscience peculiar to pursers, moved him from
the inexpensive inside room which he had engaged, to a spacious
state-room on the promenade deck, where sufficient corks were drawn
nightly to make a small life preserver.

The one person who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short,
attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass
knocker, and a taciturnity that enveloped him like a fog.

On the voyage out, Tsang Foo, the assistant deck steward, had gotten
into a fight with a brother Chinaman, and had been saved from dismissal
by Reynolds's timely intercession at headquarters. In dumb gratitude for
this service, he had laid his celestial soul at the feet of the young
American and sworn eternal allegiance.

From the day Reynolds reembarked, Tsang's silken, slippered feet
silently followed him from smoking-room to bar, from bar back to
smoking-room. Whatever emotion troubled the depths of his being, no sign
of it rose to his ageless, youthless face. But whether he was silently
performing his duties on deck, or sitting on the hatchway smoking his
opium, his vigilant eyes from their long, narrow slits kept watch.

For thirteen days the sun sparkled on the blue waters of the Pacif