of their ways. He ain't asleep, bless ye, sir;
he'll lay like that for hours. Look! he's wakin'
up now to light his pipe agin, and then when
it's later he'll begin to sing, and'll keep on
singing right through the night. That there
young Bengalee, asleep in the corner, is another
of his lodgers; he's a ship's cook, he is, only he
can't get a ship. They treat 'em shameful, just
because they're darkies, that they do, only
allowing 'em a pound a month, and sometimes
ten shillins, and they have to find they're own
'bacca out o' that. These men come from all
parts o' London to smoke Yahee's opium. Some
on 'em sweep crossins; some has situations in
tea-shops; some hawks; some cadges; some
begs; some is well off, some is ill off; but they all
likes opium, and they all knows there's no opium
like Yahee's. No; there ain't no difference
in the quality, but you can't smoke it as you
buy it, you see, and Yahee has his own way o'
preparin' it, which he won't tell nobody. That
tumbler with the light in the middle has the
opium, and that thick stuff like treacle is it.
They just take it up with a pin this way, and
roll it round and round, you see, and then when
it's like a little pea, so, they smoke away until
it's done. Tell the gen'elman how much you
smoke, Jack. They call 'im Chow Chee John
Potter, sir, because he's been christened; but
he's not right in his head, and his own country
people don't understand him." Chow Chee is of
an affectionate disposition, and the effect of
opium is to make him put both hands on my
knee, and, after advancing his smiling black face
to within a few inches of my nose, to wink
solemnly, and to say he "smoke as much as him
get, sometimes all day and all night, if
Christians peoples good to Chow Chee."

On a suggestion being made that the opium
smoking should be supplemented by some other
stimulant, gin was chosen by such of the
company as were not too stupified to speak. Yahee,
I should mention, never lifted his head after he
had once silently welcomed our little party.
Coiled up on the bed, in trousers and shirt, and
with his shoeless feet tucked under him, he looked
like a singularly tough trussed fowl, and only
turned to the light at his side as his pipe was
refilled. Save in answer to our questions, there
was little talking. Chow Chee John Potter
occasionally attempted original remarks, but
they were, as a rule, failures, and were so
branded by his friends. It was a sheer opium
debauch—not noisy, not turbulent, not quarrelsome,
but fervent, all-engrossing, and keenly
enjoyable to those engaged in it. As the evening
wore on, several fresh arrivals came in at
the narrow door; among others, two Malays, a
Lascar, and the Chinaman many of us have seen
performing the knife-trick for the delectation of
the British public. This last worthy started
back on seeing the police-sergeant, and in very
vigorous English asked what that particular
reptile wanted here. In vain was it attempted to
soothe him with the assurance that it was all
right, and that he would come to no harm. In
vain did Mrs. Abdallah and some other ladies,
who had by this time joined her in the doorway,
protest to the fastidious knife-thrower that we
were "on the square;" it was all useless, and
with a growl of baffled hate at the sergeant, and
a malignant scowl at the rest of the party, he
disappeared down the dark passage of the court,
and was no more seen during our stay. I learnt ,
subsequently, that he had just come out of
prison after a sojourn there of eighteen months,
through the sergeant having convicted him of
offences too hideous to describe. He was the
only very black sheep we saw. The others are
decent men in their way, whose principal weakness
is devotion to opium, and who rarely give
trouble to the police. Old Yahee himself has,
as mother Abdallah stated, lived for more than
twenty years in the same hovel, for which he
pays three shillings a week rent; and has spent
the whole of that time in preparing opium for
such smoking-parties as we see now, and in
making provision for his boarders. Yahee is a
consistent misogamist,and allows no woman to
interfere in his domestic arrangements. The
chopsticks and the plates for breakfast and supper
are washed by himself; his two rooms are cleaned
and swept, and every meal is prepared in the same
independent, way. Such of his customers as
desire other society than that of the choice spirits
assembled to smoke, must seek it elsewhere than
at Yahee's. He scorns to offer adventitious
attractions, and is content to rest his popularity
on his favourite drug.

I have now had the pleasure of visiting him
four times, have invariably heard the same
stories of his cleanliness and quietness, have
always found him in a stupor, and his establishment
steeped in opium fumes. His sunken
eyes, fallen cheeks, cadaverous parchment-like
skin, and deathly whiteness, make him resemble
a hideous and long-forgotten mummy; while his
immobility, and the serene indifference with
which he smokes on, whoever may be by,
suggest a piece of mechanism, or a cataleptic trance.
How he manages his little household, how he
guards against imposition, how his receipts and
disbursements are regulated, what check he
has over the consumption of opium by his
customers, are mysteries. Yet Mrs. Abdallah,
the sergeant, the inspector, Booboo, Lazarus,
and Chow Chin, are unanimous in saying
that Yahee is a good manager, a shrewd
dealer, and, in his way, a reputable host. To
lie on your back and smoke opium with your
eyes shut until after midnight, and then to
commence fantastic anecdotes and still more fantastic
songs, the offspring of your morbidly excited
brain, to continue these songs and stories until
morning, and to then go out marketing for bits
of fish and rice—this seems a trying mode of life
for an octogenarian. Yet Yahee does this, and
seems to thrive; that is to say, he is not less
like life, than when I was first shocked at seeing
him nearly three years ago. All the other
opium smokers here are young men; but the
wrinkles of their host, his sunken eyes, and falling
under-jaw, make the great age he is credited
with probable enough.