"
"How you must regret!" Angela sighed.
"I do not know. Why regret when it is too late? I regret that it is hard
to find opium. It is forbidden now, and very dear. I sell the cleanings of
my pipe--the yenshee, we call it--so I keep going."
"How can you bear to sell to others what has ruined your life?" Angela
could not help asking.
"I would do anything now to have opium," he said calmly. "But it is the
old smokers who smoke the yenshee, not the young ones. So I do no harm."
Angela sprang up, shuddering. "Is there nothing I can do to help you?" she
pleaded, her eyes turned from him, as he began to cook another pill.
"You can buy something I sell. That will help. Do you like this?" And he
pointed to a little painted china group of three monkeys, one of which
covered its ears, another its eyes, and the third its mouth. "You know
what it means? 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.' It is the motto
of our people."
"Yes--I'll buy that. It's a good motto," Angela stammered. Taking up the
little figures, she laid a five-dollar gold piece on the box table,
knowing only too well what it would buy.
"You wish to see me smoke this other pipe?" and he put it to his toothless
mouth.
"No--I can't bear it.
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