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. Me, and
two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli, but they got the
sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in the daylight can do the Black
Smoke for any length of time straight on); a Chinaman that was Fung-Tching's
nephew; a bazar-woman that had got a lot of money somehow; an English loafer--
Mac-Somebody I think, but I have forgotten--that smoked heaps, but never seemed
to pay anything (they said he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some trial in
Calcutta when he was a barrister): another Eurasian, like myself, from Madras;
a half-caste woman, and a couple of men who said they had come from the North.
I think they must have been Persians or Afghans or something. There are not
more than five of us living now, but we come regular.
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