voice like a fog-horn.

Twenty cups of tea, coffee and cocoa, too hot for speedy assimilation,
were spilled upon the floor.

The place as usual was crowded, more particularly in the neighborhood of
the two stoves. Here were dock laborers, seamen and riverside loafers,
lascars, Chinese, Arabs, negroes and dagoes. Mrs. Dougal, defiant and
red, brawny arms folded and her pose as that of one contemplating a
physical contest, glared from behind the "solid" counter. Dougal rested
his hairy hands upon the "wet" counter and revealed his defective teeth
in a vicious snarl. Many of the patrons carried light baggage, since a P
and O boat, an oriental, and the S. S. Mahratta, were sailing that night
or in the early morning, and Dougal's was the favorite house of call for
a doch-an-dorrich for sailormen, particularly for sailormen of color.

Upon the police group became focussed the glances of light eyes and dark
eyes, round eyes, almond-shaped eyes, and oblique eyes. Silence fell.

"We are police officers," called Coombes formally. "All papers, please."

Thereupon, without disturbance, the inspection began, and among the
papers scrutinized were those of one, Chung Chow, an able-bodied Chinese
seaman. But since his papers were in order, and since he possessed two
eyes and wore no pigtail, he excited no more interest in the mind of
Detective-Sergeant Coombes than did any one of the other Chinamen in the
place.

A careful search of the premises led to no better result, and George
Martin accounted for his possession of a considerable sum of money found
upon him by explaining that he had recently been paid off after a long
voyage and had been lucky at cards.

The result of the night's traffic, then, spelled failure for British
justice, the S.S. Mahratta sailed one stewardess short of her
complement; but among the Chinese crew of another steamer Eastward bound
was one, Chung Chow, formerly known as Sin Sin Wa. And sometimes in the
night watches there arose before him the picture of a black bird resting
upon the knees of an aged Chinaman. Beyond these figures dimly he
perceived the paddy-fields of Ho-Nan and the sweeping valley of the
Yellow River, where the opium poppy grows.

It was about an hour before the sailing of the ship which numbered Chung
Chow among the yellow members of its crew that Seton Pasha returned
once more to the deserted wharf whereon he had found Mrs. Monte Irvin's
spaniel. Afterwards, in the light of ascert