yself in a cellar, but instead discovered that
we were in a small square court with the mist of the night about us
again. On a doorstep facing us stood a duplicate of the lamp upon the
box upstairs. Evidently this was designed to indicate the portals of
the Joy-Shop, for Fletcher pushed open the door, whose threshold
accommodated the lamp, and the light of the place beyond shone out
into our faces. We entered and my companion closed the door behind us.

Before me I perceived a long low room lighted by flaming gas-burners,
the jets hissing and spluttering in the draught from the door, for
they were entirely innocent of shades or mantles. Wooden tables,
their surfaces stained with the marks of countless wet glasses, were
ranged about the place, cafe fashion; and many of these tables
accommodated groups, of nondescript nationality for the most part.
One or two there were in a distant corner who were unmistakably
Chinamen; but my slight acquaintance with the races of the East did
not enable me to classify the greater number of those whom I now saw
about me. There were several unattractive-looking women present.

Fletcher walked up the center of the place, exchanging nods of
recognition with two hang-dog poker-players, and I was pleased to note
that our advent had apparently failed to attract the slightest
attention. Through an opening on the right-hand side of the room, near
the top, I looked into a smaller apartment, occupied exclusively by
Chinese. They were playing some kind of roulette and another game
which seemed wholly to absorb their interest. I ventured no more than
a glance, then passed on with my companion.

"_Fan-tan!_" he whispered in my ear.

Other forms of gambling were in progress at some of the tables; and
now Fletcher silently drew my attention to yet a third dimly lighted
apartment--this opening out from the left-hand corner of the
principal room. The atmosphere of the latter was sufficiently
abominable; indeed, the stench was appalling; but a wave of choking
vapor met me as I paused for a moment at the threshold of this inner
sanctuary. I formed but the vaguest impression of its interior; the
smell was sufficient. This annex was evidently reserved for
opium-smokers.

Fletcher sat down at a small table near by, and I took a common wooden
chair which he thrust forward with his foot. I was looking around at
the sordid scene, filled with a bitter sense of my own impotency to
aid my missing friend, when