Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/253

or hurt or bitterness, "and why should I not find Him even in the Pell Street gutters? Why should I not find my tao even in the stinking, rotten heaven that vaults above Pell Street? Tell me. Is not my soul still my soul? Is not the diamond still a diamond, even after it has fallen into the dung-heap?"

And he had stepped out into the night, staring up at the purple-black sky, his coat flung wide apart, his lean, yellow hands raised high, indifferent to the rain that had begun to come down in flickering sheets.

"Say, John, wot's the matter? Been hittin' the old pipe too much? Look out! One o' these fine days I'll raid that joint o' yours," had come detective Bill Devoy's genial brogue from a door-way where he had taken refuge against the elements.

Li Ping-Yeng had not heard, had not replied; except to talk to himself, perhaps to the heaven, perhaps to the Buddha, in staccato Mongol monosyllables, which, had Bill Devoy been able to understand, would have convinced him more than ever that that there Chink was a sure-enough hop-head:

"Permit me to cross the torrent of grief, O Buddha, as, even now, I am crossing the stream of passion! Give me a stout raft to gain the other side of blessedness! Show me the way, O King!"

Back in the honorable Pavilion of Tranquil Longevity, slant eye had looked meaningly into slant eye.

"Ah, perhaps indeed he will find his tao," Yung Long, the wholesale grocer, had breathed gently; and then to Yu Ch'ang, who had again broken into harsh, mean cackling, said:

"Your mouth is like a running tap, O very great and very uncouth cockroach!"