Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the slipper, standing beside him.  It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with each guest—­more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank!  He gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy.  It was not the fiery lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius.  The slipper swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along.

Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native city of New York.  Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible.  In one of them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills—­his fee for securing the acquittal of Mock Hen.  Yes, he was in New York!

The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. Tutt far away.  Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the yellow temples of Peking.  He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of bells.  He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues.  The air was sweet.  Mr. Tutt was very tired....

“Let him sleep!” nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a delicate morsel of guy yemg dun.  “Let him sleep!  He has earned his sleep.  He has saved our face!”

It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant.  The sky was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets were crowded with pedestrians.  Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious and unwholesome.  On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha.  They had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and rushed in the direction from which he had just come.

Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back.  Courteously also stopped Wong Get and Buddha.  A throng was fast gathering in front of the Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant.

Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob.  Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in the lawyer’s ear:  “Well, they got Mock Hen!  Five bullets in him!  But if they were going to, why in hell couldn’t they have done it three months ago?”

Samuel and Delilah