“I dunno,” observed Bookie Skarvan to himself. “I dunno—it ain't got much on 'Frisco, at that!”
The guide halted, and opened a door. A soft, mellow light shone out. Bookie Skarvan smiled knowingly. He was not altogether unsophisticated! A group of richly dressed Chinamen were absorbed in cards. Scarcely one of them looked up. Bookie Skarvan's eyes passed over the group almost contemptuously, and fixed on the only man in the room who was not playing, and, likewise, the only man present who was not an Oriental, and who, with hands in his pockets, and slouch hat pushed back from his forehead, stood watching the game—a man who was abnormally short in stature, and enormously broad in shoulder, who had hair of a violently aggressive red, and whose eyes, as he turned now to look toward the door, were of a blue so faded as to make them unpleasantly colorless.
Bookie Skarvan remained tentatively on the threshold. He needed no further introduction—no one to whom the man had been previously described could mistake Cunny Smeeks, alias the Scorpion.
The other came quickly forward now with outstretched hand.
“Any friend of Baldy Vickers is a friend of mine,” he said heartily. “You want to see me—-eh? Well, come along, cull, where we can talk.”
He led the way a little further down the passage, and into another room, and closed the door. The furnishings here were meager, and evidently restricted entirely to the votaries of poppy. There was a couch, and beside it a small tabouret for the opium smoker's paraphernalia.
The Scorpion pointed to the couch; and possessed himself of the tabouret, which he straddled.
“Sit down,” he invited. “Have a drink?”
“No,” said Bookie Skarvan. “Thanks just the same. I guess I won't take anything to-night.” He grinned significantly. “I'm likely to be busy.”
The Scorpion nodded.