in the native quarter, which were not far
from the old canal which virtually makes an island of the town.

After proceeding, with hesitating steps, down a particularly dark and
foul-smelling street, the sailor paused at a corner, glanced up at a
window in a tea-chest of a house which stood flush with the alley-like
thoroughfare, and began the ascent of a flight of stairs which swayed
under his weight.

On the corner below the tea-house was still open, and the invariable
graphophone was grinding out some indistinguishable tune. When the two
passed up the dark stairway an attendant slipped out of the public room,
walked to the foot of the stairs, and observed the two mounting figures.
When the sailor opened the door to as miserable a room as the sun of the
Orient ever shone on, the attendant slipped back to the public room and
conferred with a keen-eyed, slender man who sat there--a man garbed in
the native costume, but bearing in manner and face the stamp of a
European!

The sailor closed the door of his room and set a match to a candle which
he found on a shelf hanging to a wall. There was nothing in the room,
nothing but mats, as it seemed to Ned. There was no table, no chair.
Only the mats to sit on and sleep on. The walls were of paper, and Ned
saw with pleasure that the whole front of the room, which faced the
alley, might be rolled up at will!

The sailor dropped on the floor and fumbled in his clothing for a
cigarette.

"Have you got the makings?" he asked, giving up the search at last.

Ned shook his head.

"I have need of all my wits," he said, "and never befuddle my brain with
tobacco. It's the curse of the age."

"I've got to have a cigarette," the sailor said. "I'll go crazy if I
don't have one! I won't sleep a wink, either!" he whined.

Ned handed him a dime and pointed to the door.

"Go and buy some," he said, knowing that the fellow would be in fighting
mood if he was not supplied with the narcotic. "Come back here and
smoke."

The sailor looked at the dime sorrowfully, scorning the small piece of
silver because it wasn't a dollar, as Ned concluded--pitying himself,
too, because it would not buy what he wanted most--liquor!

Ned handed him a quarter and bade him hasten back. With the man's nerves
crying out for accustomed stimulants, the boy knew that he could do
nothing with him. He must get him into a companionable mood if possible.
He dreaded the night, which seemed about to be passed in