Evening Star Newspaper, October 11, 1936, Page 79

i &V@ 11, 1936 g HEY are cutting a sixty-foot arterial road right through Limehouse; and this is a story of the condemned Asiatic colony which London once -called Chinatown; it is a story of which no mention may be found in any newspaper. The curious and the assiduous might come upon some evi- dence of it in the records of New Scotland Yard —if they were fortunate enough to obtain permission to search. “Yes,” said old Sam King in his crooning voice, ‘‘they are turning me out.”” He leaned back in his chair, looking around the little room with slit-like, meaningless eyes. I suppose he felt an affection for the place; he had lived there many years. The mingled odors of the general store which Sam King conducted penetrated to this little apartment at the back. The door was closed, for the hour was late; but here, battling in the air, were perfumes of Bombay duck, coffee, . joss stick, aniseed — all competing for prece- dence over onion. I think in this odd chamber sacred to Sam King and his friends, joss stick was probably the winner, for the old China- man remained faithful to the gods of his fathers; the room boasted a tiny shrine. Its other decorations mirrored the personality of Josie, his Creole wife, who always described herself as English. “All my good friends go too,” he continued meditatively, puffing at his large clay pipe in which he smoked some vile variety of shag, his eyes now quite closed. “It is sad. Lime- house has been our home for many years. Some of us have made a little money here; now —” He opened the slits of his eyes; the wrinkles at their corners, like tiny monkeys’ paws, were partially smoothed out. His misty regard which I had sometimes likened to that of a kindly snake, became fixed upon me. He waved his hand in the direction of the rum bottle, and, standing up, crossed the little room.. Normally he wore European clothes, THIS WEEK SLUTE fo wLIMEHOQUSE Motor cars will soon roar over the spot where London’'s Chinatown once stood. This is a tale its crumbling walls could tell— if they could talk! by SAX ROHMER Avthor of many popular stories of Oriental mystery SAM *(ING PICKED UP THE SLEEK LITTLE MONGOOSE. “YOU MAKE THEM ANGRY; YOU MUST BE LOCKED UP, MY SMALL FRIEND,” HE MURMURED but (in my honor, I think) whenever he re- ceived me in the sanctum, he attired himself in a loose blue robe. I thought, as he crossed with his queerly springing step, that I had rarely seen such a shoulder span for a man of his stature. I accepted his invitation and helped my- self sparingly. It was a Meyer$ vintage of Old Jamaica, normally unobtainable in London. ‘“The limes,”” said Sam King, glancing back, “are on the tray. You have complained of my Chinese hospitality in the past, but now that we understand one another, Respected, I say to you — ‘Help yourself.” *’ From “honorable and respected sir,”” in the course of our friendship, he had abbreviated the title to “Respected.” Tuming around, he faced me as I sliced a juicy lime. His agility in a man of his years was astonishing. On his shoulder perched the captive he had released from a wire-fronted cage which stood upon a little mahogany table. Emperor, his pet mon- goose, stared at me wickedly. “I call him Emperor,” Sam King had once informed me in his monotonous but extraor- dinarily perfect English, *“‘be- cause although so small, yet he is king of his kind. Some of my neighbors are rat ridden, but there is not a rat in my house. If I lived in a snake-infested jungle, no snake would ever cross my threshold,”” He reached up a lean, muscular hand and stroked the flat, wicked head. Presently, when we were settled in our chairs again, Sam'’s clay pipe and my briar going freely: ‘‘Where shall you go, Sam,” I asked, “‘when you leave here?”’ Faintly, but very faintly, sounds of the quarter penetrated to the smoke-laden room in which now the odor of shag definitely predonn- nated. “l have made money enough, Respected, to return to Hankow."” “Hankow is your native town?”’ “Not my native town. I was born in a northern valley of the Yellow River, where the opium poppies grow. But in Hankow I lived my life before — before the old régime was ended. The Province was then administered by a Mandarin of high rank. That was an age in which men knew how to live and how to die; the mellowed age of old China—a passing China, perhaps, but still exquisite. Yes —" he nodded — “I shall go back to Hankow.” . “You to find it changed?” “Ah! Of course, Respected. But I think I can make a place for myself there in which peacefully to pass those years which remain to me.” I was trying to find suitable words in which to ask Sam King about the reactions of his young wife to the projected change, when the mongoose shot like a yellow streak from side to side of the room, and began with method and precision to endeavor to bore his way under the closed door. I all but dropped my pipe; then the sound of a key in a lock some- where beyond dimly reached my ears. Someone, presumably Josie, Mrs. Sam - King, was coming in through the shop. I heard a man’s voice, a deep caressing voice, and I glanced aside and upward as my oid friend rose from his chair and crossed to the door. His face was quite expressionless. Even without hearing the voice, I could have identified Mrs. Sam’s escort. It was Louis, her cousin, a Creole steward employed by the Island Line, trading between West India Dock and the Leewards. Sam King opened the door as the pair came in. Josie entered first. She kissed Sam on the lobe of his left ear. Her dark eyes were danc- ing. She was smartly dressed and undeniably attractive; in her teens she had been a beauty, with the slender, upright figure which tells of mothers and grandmothers who carried bur- dens upon their heads.