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Updated: May 25, 2025
The Japs apparently attracted no attention whatsoever, but a keen observer would have noticed that Hung Wapu placed a little saki-bowl on a low table for every Japanese visitor that had entered his shop. The Japs all went through a side-door of the opium-den into a large room, where they took off their outer clothing and put on uniforms instead.
The drunken man, a Japanese, whose face looked ghastly pale in the green light from the lantern, stared stupidly at the saki-bowls, which Hung Wapu was trying to shield from the tottering wretch with his arm. "Twenty-eight bowls," he stammered to himself, "twenty-eight saki-bowls " At this moment the sleeping Chinaman awoke and looked at the drunken man with a silly laugh.
Hung Wapu passed through the store to the chop-house, where several dozen Chinese were squatting on the ground dining on unmentionable Chinese delicacies, which consisted of anything and everything soft enough to be chewed.
Then they lay down to sleep either on the mats on the floor or on the bundles of clothing which were stacked on the floor along the walls of the room. Hung Wapu now accompanied one of his Chinese guests up the cellar-steps to the street, and sitting down on the top step began to chat in a low voice with his apparently half-intoxicated countryman.
A cool current of air coming from the harbor swept through the hot, ill-smelling alley. Hung Wapu went on whispering with his companion, and all the time he continued to polish his little saki-bowls. After a while the visitor fell asleep against the door-post and snored with all his might. Misty shadows began to fall slowly and the lights of the street lamps took on a red glow.
The policeman had just made his rounds, and Hung Wapu looked after him with a cunning grin as his heavy steps died away in the distance. The coast was clear for two hours. Hung Wapu went in and locked the door, above which a green paper-lantern swung gently to and fro in the soft night wind.
Hung Wapu, whose plump face, with its enormous spectacles, resembled that of an old fat boarding-house keeper, was standing at the entrance to his cellar-shop late on the evening of May sixth. A disgusting odor and the murmur of many voices reached the street from the cellar.
Suddenly the figure of a drunken man appeared a little distance away; he was carefully feeling his way along the houses, but as soon as he came in sight of Hung Wapu's cellar, he suddenly seemed to sober up for a minute and made directly for it. "Saki!" he stammered, planting himself in front of Hung Wapu, whereupon the latter made a sign.
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