and not trying to engage in any serious business. Surely it would have
been quite beneath the dignity of such distinguished gentlemen to take
the smallest interest in the affairs of trade. They were clad in silks
and satins and furs of great value; they had a little finger-nail as
long as a slice of quill pen; they had tea on tables of carved teak; and
they had impossible pipes that breathed unspeakable odors. They wore
bracelets of priceless jade. They had private boxes, which hung from the
ceiling and looked like cages for some unclassified bird; and they could
go up into those boxes when life at the tea-table became tiresome, and
get quite another point of view. There they could look down upon the
world of traffic that never did anything in their shops, as far as we
could see; and, still murmuring to themselves in a tongue that sounds
untranslatable and a voice that was never known to rise above a stage
whisper, they could at one and the same moment regard with scorn the
Christian, keep an eye on the cash-boy, and make perfect pictures of
themselves.

[Illustration: Interior of the El Dorado]

In some parts of that strange street, where everybody was very busy but
apparently never accomplished anything, there were no fronts to the
rooms on the groundfloor. If those rooms were ever closed--it seemed to
me they never were,--some one kindly put up a long row of shutters, and
that end was accomplished. When the shutters were down the whole place
was wide open, and anybody, everybody, could enter and depart at his own
sweet will. This is exactly what he did; we did it ourselves, but we
didn't know why we did it. The others seemed to know all about it.

There was a long table in the centre of each room; it was always
surrounded by swarms of Chinamen. Not a few foreigners of various