No More Learning

He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as neat
as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss--almost
as ugly as Fung-Tching--and there were always sticks burning under his
nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going thick. Opposite
the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a good deal of his
savings on that, and whenever a new man came to the Gate he was always
introduced to it. It was lacquered black, with red and gold writings
on it, and I've heard that Fung-Tching brought it out all the way from
China. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I know that, if I
came first in the evening, I used to spread my mat just at the foot of
it. It was a quiet corner you see, and a sort of breeze from the gully
came in at the window now and then. Besides the mats, there was no other
furniture in the room--only the coffin, and the old Joss all green and
blue and purple with age and polish.

Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place "The Gate of a Hundred
Sorrows. " (He was the only Chinaman I know who used bad-sounding fancy
names. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in Calcutta. ) We used
to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on you so much, if you're
white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man is made different.
Opium doesn't
tell on him scarcely at all; but white and black suffer a good deal. Of
course, there are some people that the Smoke doesn't touch any more than
tobacco would at first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep
naturally, and next morning they are almost fit for work. Now, I was
one of that sort when I began, but I've been at it for five years pretty
steadily, and its different now. There was an old aunt of mine, down
Agra way, and she left me a little at her death. About sixty rupees a
month secured. Sixty isn't much. I can recollect a time, seems hundreds
and hundreds of years ago, that I was getting my three hundred a month,
and pickings, when I was working on a big timber contract in Calcutta.

I didn't stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not allow of
much other business; and even though I am very little affected by it, as
men go, I couldn't do a day's work now to save my life. After all, sixty
rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching was alive he used to draw
the money for me, give me about half of it to live on (I eat very
little), and the rest he kept himself. I was free of the Gate at any
time of the day and night, and could smoke and sleep there when I liked,
so I didn't care. I know the old man made a good thing out of it; but
that's no matter. Nothing matters, much to me; and, besides, the money
always came fresh and fresh each month.

There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened.