I know the old man
made a good thing out of it; but that's no matter. Nothing matters,
much to me; and, besides, the money always came fresh and fresh each
month.
There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened.
Me, and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli,
but they got the sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in
the daylight can do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight
on); a Chinaman that was Fung-Tching's nephew; a bazar-woman that
had got a lot of money somehow; an English loafer--Mac-Somebody I
think, but I have forgotten--that smoked heaps, but never seemed to
pay anything (they said he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some
trial in Calcutta when he was a barrister): another Eurasian, like
myself, from Madras; a half-caste woman, and a couple of men who
said they had come from the North. I think they must have been
Persians or Afghans or something. There are not more than five of
us living now, but we come regular. I don't know what happened to
the Baboos; but the bazar-woman she died after six months of the
Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took her bangles and nose-ring for
himself.
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