some other Buddha in another shrine.

"Funny devils, these Burmese," remarked the Barrister. "They never clean
up anything. Look at the years of tallow collected under that spiked
gate that is falling off its hinges. That black little Buddha inside
must once have been a popular favourite, but no one gives him anything
now."

They turned a corner past a booth where bottles full of pink and yellow
fluid, and green leaves, wrapped around betel-nut, appeared to be the
chief stock-in-trade, and a noise of hammering struck on their ears.
Here a new shrine was being erected and was all but completed. A few
Chinamen, who had been working at it, were putting their tools into
canvas bags, preparatory to withdrawing like the remaining daylight.

"This is Mhtoon Pah's edifice," said Fitzgibbon, coming to a standstill.
"He doesn't seem to have spared expense, either. Shall we go in?"

The shrine was not a very large one, and the entrance was like the
entrance to a grotto at an Exhibition. Tiny facets of glass were crusted
into grass-green cement, shining like a thousand eyes, and, seated on a
vermilion lacquer daïs, a Buddha, with heavy eyelids that hid his
strange eyes, presided over an illumination of smoking flame. The smell
of joss-sticks was heavy on the air, and the filigree cloak worn by the
Buddha was enriched with red and green glass that shone and glittered.

"They say the caste-mark in his forehead is a real diamond," remarked
the Barrister. "I don't suppose it is, but at least it is a good
imitation."