Yo Len Fo shook his head affirmatively.
“He is well, excellency,” he said. “He has been sleeping all the afternoon and he has just taken three pipes. He has also drunk the whiskey you sent.”
“I will see him,” said Yeh Ling and dropped some money upon the divan.
The old man picked this up, uncurled himself and putting down his ivory carefully, led the way up another flight of stairs. A small oil lamp burnt on the bare mantelpiece of the room into which Yeh Ling walked. On a discoloured mattress lay a man. He wore only shirt and trousers and his feet were bare. By the side of the mattress was a tray on which rested a pipe, a half-emptied glass and a watch.
Mr. Wellington Brown looked up at the visitor, his glazed eyes showing the faintest light of interest.
“’Lo, Yeh Ling—come to smoke?”
His language was a queer mixture of Cantonese and English, and it was in the former tongue that Yeh Ling replied.
“I do not smoke, Hsien,” he said and the man chuckled.
“Hsien?—‘The Unemployed One’, eh—funny how names stick—wasser time?”
“It is late,” said Yeh Ling, and the head of the man drooped.