The Forrest City times., 1913-05-02

mornings mail Murphy is still at Cos Cob. He didn't leave his bunga- low all day yesterday. and he had no callers"
 I'm crazy to know what you learn tonight from Yup Sing" she went on. eagerly. "Oh. how do hope 1t will give us some hint! It seems terrible to think of Uncle Robert in the hands Of those unconscionable Chinamen. And, Philip, don't you think you had better take some one with you? l suppose MT. Yup Is to be trusted, but at the same time, you must remember you are going Into the enemy's camp. and you should be careful"
 But I laughed at the notion of talk ing a body-guard.
 I'm to meet him at nine o'clock" I told her, fin a public restaurant Be sides, there1l be a crowd of those ] Seeing New York people down there about that time, and Chinatown will be on It's best behavior. So never fear, little girl. Do you want me to tele- phone you when I get uptown? You know I'm going to stop tonight at my | TooHls III the LOyalt0n.
 "Of course I want you to telephone me" she returned, emphatically. Tt shouldn't take you very long to hear what MT. Yup has to tell, should 1t? l shall be expecting you to call me up between ten and half-past. or by elev- en at the latest; so don't dare to go for supper first"
 If In1r said, looking at her in way I had. when I might be hearing your voice,"
 Could have foreseen what the night was to bring forth I certainly should have discouraged her waiting for my message. But the power of pre- vision is given to few of us, and of those few am not one.
 Assuredly I had no misgivings as. after dining at the University club that evening. I stepped into an cleo tric hansom and gave the driver the address of the Doyers street restau- rant, Whatever 1t may have been In the past, l believed the Chinatown Of the present to be, outwardly at least | irdSOhdDlJ bCSIiOh oA tbC borough of Manhattan. And was not I that night the guest of one of It's most honored citizens? What. there fore, had l to fear?
 On the contrary, as we turned from the Bowery into that little semicircu- lar thoroughfare which Is perhaps the most characteristic of Chinatown's three principal streets, was pleas antly interested. This was quite different place from that which I had visited the afternoon before. Then, sort of breeding quiet reigned over what was so ordinary as to be scarce ly distinctive; for that part of Mott street on which the Yup Sing estab- lishment is located, I have since learn ed, is merely one of the gates of the real Chinatown, of which Doyers street is the heart and center-and which awakens only after nightfall.
 Now the place was alive and alight Narrow roadway and still narrower sidewalks were thronged with a com bination of denizens and sightseers Shop fronts and upper windows glow ed with varying degrees of brightness From the Chinese theater on the left came a bedlam of inharmonious sounds; the brazen crash of cymbals, the squeaking of raucous stringed in- struments, the resoundlng clangor of a gong. Voices high pitched and voices guttural, mingled with hoarse and strident laughter, echoed from wall to wall of the streets encroaching squalid buildings.
 Before the least unpretentious of all these structures, my hanson stopped, and as I stepped to the curb I got a glimpse of its banner and lantern strung balcony. giving to the street touch of color that helped to lift 1t into an atmosphere which, If not Oriental, was at least vividly un-Amer- ican.
 Finding now that I had anticipated my appointment by something like ten minutes 1 chose to watch further the kaleidoscopic scene without, rather than pass the time waiting at table within; and to this end took up posi- ton of vantage on the restaurants low step.
 Whether l am more or less keenly observant than the average man I do not know. Probably any one as fas- cinated by the general scene as was I. would have noted as closely its indi- yidual clements. l am not sure But the truth is that in very few mo- ments l had acquired a mental photo graph of the opposite side of the ] IA direct vision. In other words every detail of the background of the nov ing picture before me was indelibly printed upon my minds retina. There was the playhouse, with its plain, rec tangular doorway, unadorned, save by Quartette of rude signs; two above, slanting outward, and one on either side. all announcing Chinese Thea ter" and one giving the current at traction in Chinese characters, with