Sin Sin Wa performed a curious shrugging movement, peculiarly racial.

“A man may not always have the same wife,” he replied cryptically.  “The honorable wife who now attends to my requirements, laboring unselfishly in my miserable house and scorning the love of other men as she has always done—­and as an honorable and upright woman is expected to do—­may one day be gathered to her ancestors.  A man never knows.  Or she may leave me.  I am not a good husband.  It may be that some little maiden of Ho-Nan, mild-eyed like the musk-deer and modest and tender, will consent to minister to my old age.  Who knows?”

Sir Lucien blew a thick cloud of tobacco smoke into the room, and: 

“She will never love you, Sin Sin Wa,” he said, almost sadly.  “She will come to your house only to cheat you.”

Sin Sin Wa repeated the eloquent shrug.

“We have a saying in Ho-Nan, most honorable sir,” he answered, “and it is this:  ‘He who has tasted the poppy-cup has nothing to ask of love.’  She will cook for me, this little one, and stroke my brow when I am weary, and light my pipe.  My eye will rest upon her with pleasure.  It is all I ask.”

There came a soft rapping on the outer door—­three raps, a pause, and then two raps.  The raven opened his beady eye.

“Sin Sin Wa,” he croaked, “number one p’lice chop, lo!”

Sin Sin Wa glanced aside at Sir Lucien.

“The traffic.  A consignment of opium,” he said.  “Sam Tuk calls.”

Sir Lucien consulted his watch, and: 

“I should like to go with you, Sin Sin Wa,” he said.  “Would it be safe to leave the house—­with the upper door unlocked?”

Sin Sin Wa glanced at him again.

“All are sleeping, most honorable sir?”

“All.”

“I will lock the room above and the outer door.  It is safe.”

He raised a yellow hand, and the raven stepped sedately from his shoulder on to his wrist.

“Come, Tling-a-Ling,” crooned Sin Sin Wa, “you go to bed, my little black friend, and one day you, too, shall see the paddy-fields of Ho-Nan.”

Opening the useful cupboard, he stooped, and in hopped the raven.  Sin Sin Wa closed the cupboard, and stepped out into the passage.

“I will bring you a coat and a cap and scarf,” he said.  “Your magnificent apparel would be out of place among the low pigs who wait in my other disgusting cellar to rob me.  Forgive my improper absence for one moment, most honorable sir.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE TRAFFIC

Sir Lucien came out into the alley wearing a greasy cloth cap pulled down over his eyes and an old overall, the collar turned up about a red woollen muffler which enveloped the lower part of his face.  The odor of the outfit was disgusting, but this man’s double life had brought him so frequently in contact with all forms of uncleanness, including that of the Far East, compared with which the dirt of the West is hygienic, that he suffered it without complaint.