different to the houses in Paradise Street.
The fronts were brightened with gilt, and green and red paint daubed the
entrances. Almost every third shop was a restaurant, and Hartley did not
care to think of the sort of food that was cooked and eaten within.
Immense lanterns, that turned into coloured moons by night, but they
were pale and dim by day, hung on the cross-beams inside the houses.

Some half-way down the colonnade, and deep in the odorous gloom, Leh
Shin worked at nothing in particular, and sold devils as Mhtoon Pah sold
them, but without the same success. The door of his shop was closed, and
Hartley rapped upon it several times before he received an answer; then
a bolt was shot back, and Leh Shin's long neck stretched itself out
towards the officer. He was a thin, gaunt figure, lean as the Plague,
and his spare frame was clad in cheap black stuff that hung around him
like the garments of Death itself. Hartley drew back a step, for the
smell of _napi_ and onions is unpleasant even to the strongest of white
men, and told Leh Shin to open the door wide as he wished to talk to
him. Leh Shin, with many owlish blinkings of his narrow eyes, asked
Hartley to come inside. The street was not a good place for talking, and
Hartley followed him into the shop.

It was very dark within, and a dim light fell from high skylight
windows, giving the shop something of the suggestion of a well. Counters
blocked it, making entrance a matter of single file, and, in the deep
gloom at the back, two candles burned before a huge, ferocious-looking
figure depicted on rice-paper and stuck against the wall. It was hard to
believe that it was day outside, so heavy was the darkness, and it was a
few moments before Hartley's eyes became accustomed to the sudden
change. Second-hand clothes hung on pegs around the room, and all kinds
of articles were jumbled together regardless of their nature. On the
floor was a litter of silk and silver goods, boxes, broken portmanteaux,
ropes, baskets, and on the counter nearest the door a tiny silver cage
of beautiful workmanship inhabited by a tiny golden bird with ruby eyes.

At the back of the shop and near the yellow circle of light thrown by
the candles, was a boy, naked to the waist, and immensely stout and
heavy. His long plait of hair was twisted round and round on his shaven
forehead, and he stood perfectly still, watching the officer out of
small pig eyes. He was chewing something slowly, turn