Number Fifty-Six

What I narrate was told me one winter's evening by my
friend Ah-Yen in the little room behind his laundry.
Ah-Yen is a quiet little celestial with a grave and
thoughtful face, and that melancholy contemplative
disposition so often noticed in his countrymen. Between
myself and Ah-Yen there exists a friendship of some years'
standing, and we spend many a long evening in the dimly
lighted room behind his shop, smoking a dreamy pipe
together and plunged in silent meditation. I am chiefly
attracted to my friend by the highly imaginative cast of
his mind, which is, I believe, a trait of the Eastern
character and which enables him to forget to a great
extent the sordid cares of his calling in an inner life
of his own creation. Of the keen, analytical side of his
mind, I was in entire ignorance until the evening of
which I write.

The room where we sat was small and dingy, with but little
furniture except our chairs and the little table at which
we filled and arranged our pipes, and was lighted only
by a tallow candle. There were a few pictures on the
walls, for the most part rude prints cut from the columns
of the daily press and pasted up to hide the bareness of
the room. Only one picture was in any way noticeable, a