and that's a tea-house, and that's a silk
merchant," remarked my guide at intervals, indicating different
buildings as we passed. Some were frame houses with signs hanging out,
painted in Chinese characters and with wonderful red door-posts; some
had latticed windows with lights burning behind. But for the most
part, from this outer point of view, Chinatown was clean, orderly, and
dark.

We stopped at last before an open doorway through which we stepped and
crossed a yard, hemmed in by the crowded frame buildings round it, but
open to the sky. By the light of the stars we found a ladder at the
farther side and ascended this as it leant against the crooked wall of
a rickety and tumbledown-looking house. The ladder went as far as the
second story, where there was an open square of blackness, either
window or door, through which we scrambled from the swaying rungs and
then found ourselves in a passage. It was very low, apparently, for I
struck my head whenever I held it upright, and so narrow that our
shoulders brushed the sides. It was in fact a little tunnel, reminding
one of the rounded runways a rabbit makes in thick undergrowth. It was
quite dark, and my guide put himself in front and took one of my
hands, pulling me along after him down steps and round corners, along
different twisted, corkscrew turnings, till at last a passage a little
broader than the others opened before us, where a lamp was burning; he
drew back against the wall, pushing me forwards, and whispering some
directions in my ear.

I passed along, as I was bid, went down two small steps, and knocked
at the door I found before me. The door seemed a very stout one,
securely fastened, and had a small aperture, at the height of one's
face from the ground. It was only about five inches square and set
with thick vertical iron bars. Behind these was an iron flap now
closed.

I knocked and waited. Presently the iron flap behind the bars was
cautiously opened and I saw a face peering through at me. Before I
could speak the iron flap was shut to with a clank.

"That's because Nanine sees you're a stranger," whispered my guide.
"They're a real bad lot here, and they're precious afraid of any 'tecs
getting in. Just let me pass, sir."

I drew back, and he went up and gave the most extraordinary squawk
that I ever heard. It was a pretty good password to have, for I should
think no stranger could imitate it. The flap flew open again, and then
some conversation