"Do you happen to know that Mhtoon Pah was looking for a bowl of gold
lacquer, and that he sent his boy Absalom here to get it?"

Leh Shin shook his head. He was a poor man, and he knew nothing.
Moreover, he knew nothing of July the twenty-ninth, he did not count
days. He had not seen the boy Absalom.

"Let me advise you to be truthful, Leh Shin," said Hartley. "You may be
called upon to give an account of yourself on the evening and night of
July the twenty-ninth."

Leh Shin looked stolidly at the mildewed clothes and tried to remember,
but he failed to be explicit, and the greasy, obese creature, still
chewing, was recalled to assist his master's memory. He spoke in a high
chirping voice, and looked at Hartley with angry eyes as he asserted
that his master had been ill upon the evening mentioned and that he had
closed the shop early, and that he himself had gone to the nautch house
to witness a dance that had lasted until morning.

"You can prove what you say, I suppose," said Hartley, speaking to Leh
Shin, "and satisfy me that the boy Absalom was not here, and did not
come here?"

Leh Shin, moved to sudden life, protested that he could prove it, that
he could call half Hong Kong Street to prove it.

"I don't want Hong Kong Street. I want a creditable witness," said
Hartley, and he turned to go. "So far as I know, you are an honest
dealer, Leh Shin, and I am quite ready to believe, if you can help me,