You can
even, with a certain degree of caution, indulge in the opium pipe, the
joy of the Chinaman. As you draw on this pipe and take long draughts
you lapse into a strange state, all your ills seem to vanish, and you
become indifferent to the world. The beggar in imagination becomes
a millionaire, and for the time he feels that he is in the midst
of courtly splendours. But, ah! When one awakes from his dream the
pleasures are turned into ashes, and the glory fades as the fires
of the pipe die. _Sic transit gloria mundi_! On the walls of the
restaurant were various Chinese decorations. The inevitable lantern
was in evidence. Here also were tablets with sentences in the language
of the Celestials. But there was one thing that struck me forcibly as
I examined the various objects in the rooms. In the rear half of the
restaurant, on the north side of the room, stood a Chinese safe,
somewhat in fashion like our ordinary American safe. It was not,
however, secured with the combination lock with which we are all
familiar. It shut like a cupboard, and had eight locks on a chain as
it were.
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