“Sit down, old son,” said my friend heartily, pushing forward an old arm-chair.  “Fetch out the grog, Jim; there’s about enough for three.”

I walked to a cupboard, as the fireman sank limply down in the chair, and took out a bottle and three glasses.  When the man, who, as I could now see quite plainly, was suffering from the after effects of opium, had eagerly gulped the stiff drink which I handed to him, he looked around with dim, glazed eyes, and: 

“You’ve saved my life, mates,” he declared.  “I’ve ’ad a ’orrible nightmare, I ’ave—­a nightmare.  See?”

He fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then raised himself from his seat, peering narrowly at me across the table.

“I seed you before, mate.  Gaw, blimey! if you ain’t the bloke wot I giv’d the pigtail to!  And wot laid out that blasted Chink as was scraggin’ me!  Shake, mate!”

I shook hands with him, Harley eyeing me closely the while, in a manner which told me that his quick brain had already supplied the link connecting our doped acquaintance with my strange experience during his absence.  At the same time it occurred to me that my fireman friend did not know that Ah Fu was dead, or he would never have broached the subject so openly.

“That’s so,” I said, and wondered if he required further information.

“It’s all right, mate.  I don’t want to ’ear no more about blinking pigtails—­not all my life I don’t,” and he sat back heavily in his chair and stared at Harley.

“Where have you been?” inquired Harley, as if no interruption had occurred, and then began to reload his pipe:  “at Malay Jack’s or at Number Fourteen?”

“Neither of ’em!” cried the fireman, some evidence of animation appearing in his face; “I been at Kwen Lung’s.”

“In Pennyfields?”

“That’s ’im, the old bloke with the big joss.  I allers goes to see Ma Lorenzo when I’m in Port o’ London.  I’ve seen ’er for the last time, mates.”

He banged a big and dirty hand upon the table.

“Last night I see murder done, an’ only that I know they wouldn’t believe me, I’d walk across to Limehouse P’lice Station presently and put the splits on ’em, I would.”

Harley, who was seated behind the speaker, glanced at me significantly.

“Sure you wasn’t dreamin’?” he inquired facetiously.

“Dreamin’!” cried the man.  “Dreams don’t leave no blood be’ind, do they?”

“Blood!” I exclaimed.

“That’s wot I said—­blood!  When I woke up this mornin’ there was blood all on that grinnin’ joss—­the blood wot ’ad dripped from ’er shoulders when she fell.”

“Eh!” said Harley.  “Blood on whose shoulders?  Wot the ’ell are you talkin’ about, old son?”

“Ere”—­the fireman turned in his chair and grasped Harley by the arm—­“listen to me, and I’ll tell you somethink, I will.  I’m goin’ in the Seahawk in the mornin’ see?  But if you want to know somethink, I’ll tell yer.  Drunk or sober I bars the blasted p’lice, but if you like to tell ’em I’ll put you on somethink worth tellin’.  Sure the bottle’s empty, mates?”