hastily extracted his man, who saluted him with a "Hello, bloke!" Then the five went to have "chop suey" at a Chinese restaurant to which the ex-prize-fighter led them with the air of a man who knew his world, and was quite indifferent to any other.
He was a small, wiry man, collarless, rather drunk, with a sallow face, hard as steel, in which smouldered two half-extinct black eyes. Scarcely a muscle of his face moved when he spoke. He slid his words out of the corner of his thin immobile, lips, and they rapped with an emphasis like that of metal on metal. His eyes were perfectly expressionless as he observed the various members of the party. He had seen innumerable slumming parties, and while he was quite willing to talk to any of them for the sake of a supper, drink, and a few dollars at the end of the evening, their world did not interest him. He patronised them as easily as he did the Chinese waiters in the small room up a dirty flight of stairs, where he selected the best table, and issued his curt orders. The two Chinese, in loose linen coats and flapping slippers, brought rice, tea, and the curious mixture of veal, bamboo-shoots, and unknown condiments which figured on the sign outside. The prize-fighter addressed to them a few words in their own tongue, and a shade which might have been a smile passed over their faces, immovable as his own.
