interruption as Mr. Shandy, and from behind the 
hideous yellow partition came sounds as of the 
constant babbling of a human voice.  Repeated 
glances in this direction drew from my enter-
tainer the information that it was “ only her 
husband,” indicating the yellow-haired girl with 
the stem of her short clay pipe.  She added that 
he was dying. 
Curiosity, Compassion’s Siamese twin, prompted 
a desire to see the sufferer. 
The old lady rose, not without difficulty, lifted 
the curtain, and let it fall behind me as I entered 
the gloom which lay beyond.  On a bed, in that 
half-fathomed twilight, big with the scent of 
joss-sticks smouldering in a saucer before a little 
bronze Buddha-rupa, lay a man, still young, the 
traces of rare beauty in his face, though worn with 
suffering and horrid with a week’s growth of 
beard. 
He was murmuring over to himself some words 
which I could not catch, but my entrance, though 
he did not notice me, seemed to rouse him a little. 
 
iv