The time of which I am now writing was the middle of March, the hottest and, in every respect, the worst month of the year in Singapore.  Day and night the land was oppressed by the same stifling heat, a sweltering calidity possessing the characteristics of a steam-laundry, coupled with those of the stokehole of an ocean liner in the Red Sea.  Morning, noon, and night, the quarter in which the Hotel of the Three Desires was situated was fragrant with the smell of garbage and Chinese tobacco; a peculiar blend of perfume, which once smelt is not to be soon forgotten.  Everything, even the bottles on the shelves in the bar, had a greasy feel about them, and the mildew on one’s boots when one came to put them on in the morning, was a triumph in the way of erysiphaceous fungi.  Singapore at this season of the year is neither good for man nor beast; in this sweeping assertion, of course I except the yellow man, upon whom it seems to exercise no effect whatsoever.

It was towards evening, and, strange to relate, the Hotel of the Three Desires was for once practically empty.  This was the more extraordinary for the reason that the customers who usually frequented it, en route from one end of the earth to the other, are not affected by seasons.  Midwinter was to them the same as midsummer, provided they did their business, or got their ships, and by those ships, or that business, received their wages.  That those hard-earned wages should eventually find themselves in the pocket of the landlord of the Three Desires, was only in the natural order of things, and, in consequence, such of his guests as were sailors, as a general rule, eventually boarded their ships without as much as would purchase them a pipe of tobacco.  It did not, however, prevent them from returning to the Hotel of the Three Desires when next they happened to be that way.  If he had no other gift, Manuel at least possessed the faculty of making it comparatively homelike to his customers, and that is a desideratum not to be despised even by sailor men in the Far East.

As I have said, night was falling on one of the hottest days of the year, when a man entered the hotel and inquired for the proprietor.  Pleased to find that there was at last to be a turn in the tide of his affairs, the landlord introduced himself to the stranger, and at the same time inquired in what way he could have the pleasure of serving him.

“I want to put up with you,” said the stranger, who, by the way, was a tall man, with a hawk’s eye and a nose that was not unlike the beak of the same bird.  “You are not full, I suppose?”

Manuel rubbed his greasy hands together and observed that he was not as full as he had been; thereby insinuating that while he was not overflowing, he was still not empty.  It will be gathered from this that he was a good business man, who never threw a chance away.

“In that case, I’ll stay,” said the stranger, and set down the small valise he carried upon the floor.