th a kind of awe to
the tide making up the flats, muffled and unfamiliar, and inhaling the
perfume compounded of steam, soap, hot linen, rats, opium, tea, idols
and what-not peculiar to Yen Sin's shop and to a thousand lone shops in
a thousand lone villages scattered across the mainland. When the
precious collar was at last in my hands, still limp and hot from its
ordeal, Yen Sin hung over me in the yellow nimbus of the lamp, smiling
at my wonder. I stared with a growing distrust at the flock of tiny
bird-scratches inked on the band.

"What," I demanded suspiciously, "is _that_?"

"Lat's Mista You," he said, nodding his head and summoning another
hundred of wrinkles to his damp, polished face.

"That ain't my name. You don't know my name," I accused him.

"Mista Yen Sin gottee name, allee light."

The thing fascinated me, like a serpent.

"Whose name is _that_, then?" I demanded, pointing to a collar on the
counter between us. The band was half-covered with the cryptic
characters, done finely and as if with the loving hand of an artist.

Yen Sin held it up before his eyes in the full glow of the lamp. His
face seemed incredibly old; not senile, like our white-beards mumbling
on the wharves, but as if it had been a long, long time in the making
and was still young. I thought he had forgotten me, he was so engrossed
in his handiwork.

"Lat colla?" he mused by-and-by. "Lat's Mista Minista, boy."

"Mister Minister _Malden_?"

And there both of us stared a little, for there was a voice at the door.

"Yes? Yes? What is it?"

Minister Malden stood with his head and shoulders bent, wary of the low
door-frame, and his eyes blinking in the new light. I am sure he did not
see me on the bench; he was looking at Yen Sin.

"How is it with you to-night, my brother?"

The Chinaman straightened up and faced him, grave, watchful.

"Fine," he said. "Mista Yen Sin fine. Mista Minista fine, yes?"

He bowed and motioned his visitor to a rocker, upholstered with a worn
piece of Axminster and a bit of yellow silk with half a dragon on it.
The ceremony, one could see, was not new. Vanishing into the further
mysteries of the rear, he brought out a bowl of tea, steaming, a small
dish of heathenish things, nuts perhaps, or preserves, deposited the
offering on the minister's pointed knees, and retired behind the counter
to watch and wait.

An amazing change came over the minister. Accustomed to seeing him
gentle, shrinking, ill