countryman stares a moment with blank astonishment, and then, with many thanks, tells the officer just what the latter had already told him, and leaves the Barbary Coast in all haste.
"Do you want to see what they are doing in these places?" says the officer. "Come in herewith me." We enter what appears to be an ordinary "corner grocery," with piles of potatoes, onions, soap, candles, and other ordinary goods, in boxes and bags, stacked up in front. Everything looks quiet and respectable, but the German or French proprietor of the place glances anxiously at our escort, who pushes open a green Venetian blind, which serves as a door at what appears to be the back of the room, and motions for us to enter. Here, in an inner room, for which the grocery in the front is but a screen in reality, we find some twenty rascally-looking negroes from Panama, the West Indies, Peru and Guiana, sitting round dirty tables, playing draw-poker and other swindling games, with greasy, fairly stinking cards, for money which we know they never honestly earned. "Hulloa, that is you, is it? You are a healthy crowd, you are! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine 'old cons.' One, two, three, four, five, six, seven chain-gang customers; and six that ought to be hanged, and will be, sooner or later." Having thus classified the occupants of the place, for our and their benefit, the officer leads us out once more on the street.
We next enter a similarly appearing establishment, in which there are a billiard-table in the back room,
