had gone out of him, and he was no longer bothered with it. His face was
a mask, transparent and curiously luminous, and there for the first time
I saw the emotion of humor, which is another name for perception.

His unclouded eyes found me by the door and he moved a hand in a vague
gesture. I went, walking stiff-legged, awe mingling with
self-importance.

"Mista Boy, please," he whispered in my ear. "The collas on the shelf
theah. Led paypah--"

Wondering, I took them down and piled them on the couch beside him, one
after another, little bundles done up carefully in flaring tissue with
black characters inked on them.

"That one!" he whispered, and I undid the one under his finger,
discovering half a dozen collars, coiled with their long imprisonment.

"And that one, and that one--"

They covered his legs and rose about his thin shoulders, those treasured
soiled collars of his, gleaming under the lamp like the funeral-pyre of
some fantastic potentate. Nothing was heard in the room save the faint
crackling of the paper, and after a moment Lem Pigeon murmuring in
amazement to his neighbor, over in a corner.

"Look a-there, will ye? He's got my collar with the blood spot onto it
where the Lisbon woman's husband hit me that time down to New Bedford.
What ye make o' that now?"

Yen Sin lifted his eyes to Mate Snow's hanging over him in wonder.

"Mista Matee Snow confessee, yes?"

There was a moment of shocked silence while our great man stared at Yen
Sin. He took his weight from the counter and stood up straight.

"I confess my sins to God," he said.

The other moved a fluttering hand over his collars. "Mista Yen Sin allee
same like Mista God, yes."

In the hush I heard news of the blasphemy whispering from lip to lip,
out the door and up the awe-struck dock. Mate Snow lifted a hand.

"Stop!" he cried. "Yen Sin, you are standing in the Valley of the Shadow
of Death--"

"Mista Matee Snow wickee man? No? Yes? Mista Matee Snow confessee?"

The Chinaman was making a game of his death-bed, and even the dullest
caught the challenge. Mate Snow understood. The yellow man had asked him
with the divine clarity of the last day either to play the game or not
to play the game. And Mate Snow wanted something enough to play.

"Yes," he murmured, "I am weak. All flesh is weak." He faltered, and his
brow was corded with the labor of memory. It is hard for a good man to
summon up sins enough to make a decent confession;