"Can't say," replied Tom, vaguely. "Yet, if I do go around with you, you've got to take me to the really swell opium places."
"Oh, I can do it—better'n any other guide in Chinatown," promised the fellow, quickly. "Come, just hand over the two dollars, and see what I can show you."
With a great pretense of reluctance Captain Tom produced four half dollars, which he handed to the guide.
"Remember, now," he said, "I want what you might call the aristocratic places."
"If ye ain't satisfied," promised the guide, glibly, "then ye'll get your money back."
"Go ahead, then, but mind what I told you."
Through dark alleyways, or through stores into rear apartments, Halstead followed his conductor. In rapid succession he passed in and out of half a dozen opium joints. One was as much like another as two kernels of wheat resemble each other.
In each place there was the same outer room, then the same bunk-room, an apartment fitted up with bunks at the sides. It was in these rooms that the smoking was done. The intending smoker stretched himself out in a bunk, while a Chinese attendant brought lamp and kit. A tiny ball of opium was quickly lighted—"cooked"—at the lamp's flame. Then this glowing pellet of opium was thrust into the bowl of an opium pipe, and the latter handed to the smoker in the bunk. The smoker consumed his pellet after two or three whiffs. After smoking three or four pipes, most of the smokers succumbed, falling back in a torpid sleep.
The air was heavy, disgusting in these places. Degraded white men and women were occasionally to be seen, though most of the smokers were Orientals, generally Chinese.