The clue of the new pin — Themes and Context

gilded elevator to carry you to the first and second floors where the private dining-rooms were--these had doors of plate glass, curtained diaphanously. Yeh Ling thought that this was carrying respectability a little too far, but his patron was adamant on the matter.

Certain rooms had no plate glass doors, but these were very discreetly apportioned. One such was never under any circumstances hired to diners, however important or impeccable they might be. It was the end room No. 6, near to the service doorway which led through a labyrinth of crooked and cross passages to the old building in Reed Street. This remained almost unchanged as it had been in the days of Yeh Ling’s earlier struggles. Men and women came here for Chinese dishes and were supplied by soft-footed waiters from Han-Kow, which was Yeh Ling’s native province.

The patrons of the old establishment lamented the arrival of Yeh Ling’s prosperity and sneered at his well-dressed customers. The well-dressed customers being, for the most part, entirely ignorant that their humble neighbours had existence, ate their expensive meals unmoved and at certain hours danced sedately to the strains of The Old Original South Carolina Syncopated Orchestra, which Yeh Ling had hired regardless of expense.

He only visited the fashionable part of his property on one day of the year, the Chinese New Year, a queer little figure in a swallow-tailed coat, white-vested, white-gloved and tightly, as well as whitely collared.

At other times, he sat at ease midway between the desert and the sown in a pokey little parlour hung about with vivid pictures which he had cut from the covers of magazines. Here, in a black silk robe, he pulled at his long-stemmed pipe. At half-past seven every night, except Sundays, he went to a door which opened on to the street, and was the door of one of those houses which linked the two restaurants, and here he would wait, his hand upon the knob. Sometimes the girl came first, sometimes the old man. Whichever it was, they usually passed in without a word and went up to Room No. 6. With their arrival Yeh Ling went back to his parlour to smoke and write letters of great length and beauty to his son at Han-Kow, for Yeh Ling’s son was a man of great learning and position, being both a poet and a scholar. He had been admitted a member of the Forest of Pencils, which is at least the equivalent to being elected an Academician.

Sometimes, Yeh Ling would devote himself to the matter of his new building at Shanford and dream dreams of an Excellency who would be its honoured master--for all things are possible in a land which makes education a test of choice for Ambassadorial appointments.

He never saw the two guests depart. They found their way to the door alone, and soon after eight the room was empty. No waiter served them; their meals were placed in readiness on a small buffet and as No. 6 was veiled from the observations of the curious by a curtain which stretched across the passage, only Yeh Ling knew them.

On the first Monday of every month, Yeh Ling went up to the room and kow-towed to its solitary occupant. The old man was always alone on these occasions. On such a Monday, with a large lacquered cash-box in his hand and a fat book under his arm, Yeh Ling entered the presence of the man in No. 6, put down his impedimenta on the buffet and did his reverence.

“Sit down,” said Jesse Trasmere, and he spoke in the sibilant dialect of the lower provinces. Yeh Ling obeyed, hiding his own hands respectfully in the full sleeves of his gown. “Well?”

“The profits this week have fallen, excellency,” said Yeh Ling but without apology. “The weather has been very fine and many of our clients are out of town.”

He exposed his hands to open the cash-box and bring out four packages of paper money. These he divided into two, three of the packages to the right and one to the left. The old man took the three packages, which were nearest to him and grunted.

“The police came last night and asked to be shown over the houses,” Yeh Ling went on impressively. “They desired to see the cellars, because they think always that Chinamen have smoke-places in their cellars.”

“Humph,” said Mr. Trasmere. He was thumbing the money in his hand. “This is good, Yeh Ling.”

He slipped the money into a black bag which was on the floor at his feet. Yeh Ling shook his head, thereby indicating his agreement.

“Do you remember in Fi Sang a man who worked for me?”

The old man agreed to the appellation.