Leroux.
"Said will show you to a wroom," continued Ho-Pin, "where you will find
a gentleman awaiting you. You will valet him and perfowrm any other
services which he may wrequire of you. When he departs, you will clean
the wroom and adjoining bath-wroom, and put it into thowrough order
for an incoming tenant. In short, your duties in this wrespect will be
identical to those which formerly you perfowrmed at sea. There is
one important diffewrence: your name is Lucas, and you will answer no
questions."
The metallic voice seemed to reach Soames' comprehension from some place
other than the room of the golden dragon--from a great distance, or as
though he were fastened up in a box and were being addressed by someone
outside it.
"Yes, sir," he replied.
Said opened the yellow door upon the right of the room, and Soames
followed him into another of the matting-lined corridors, this one
running right and left and parallel with the wall of the apartment which
he had just quitted. Six doors opened out of this corridor; four of
them upon the side opposite to that by which he had entered, and one at
either end.
These doors were not readily to be detected; and the wall, at first
glance, presented an unbroken appearance. But from experience, he had
learned that where the strips of bamboo which overlay the straw matting
formed a rectangular panel, there was a door, and by the light of the
electric lamp hung in the center of the corridor, he counted six of
these.
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