The police will not tell you how many white men are
annually lost in those festering alleys that lie north of Kearney
Street, but if you are interested in such matters, I can refer you to
a certain grim-faced guide, who has spent nearly twenty years in
Chinatown, and you can implicitly believe one quarter of what he says:
that quarter will strain your credulity not a little.
We walked to the address given in the letter--a low dive--not a
stone's-throw from one of the biggest hotels west of the Rocky
Mountains. The man behind the bar said that he knew The Babe well,
that he was a perfect gentleman, and a personal friend of his. The
fellow's glassy eyes and his grey-green skin told their own story. A
more villainous or crafty-looking scoundrel it has been my good
fortune not to see.
"Where is your friend?" said Ajax.
The man behind the bar protested ignorance. Then my brother laid a
five-dollar gold piece upon the country, and repeated the question.
The man's yellow fingers began to tremble. Gold to him was opium, and
opium held all his world and the glory thereof.
"I can't take you to him--now," he muttered sullenly.
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