He was a one-eyed little chap, not much more than five
feet high, and both his middle fingers were gone. All the same, he
was the handiest man at rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never
seemed to be touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took day and
night, night and day, was a caution. I've been at it five years,
and I can do my fair share of the Smoke with any one; but I was a
child to Fung-Tching that way. All the same, the old man was keen
on his money, very keen; and that's what I can't understand. I
heard he saved a good deal before he died, but his nephew has got
all that now; and the old man's gone back to China to be buried.
He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as
neat as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss--
almost as ugly as Fung-Tching--and there were always sticks burning
under his nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going
thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a
good deal of his savings on that, and whenever a new man came to the
Gate he was always introduced to it.
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