better now." In the afternoon he walked up to the house.
"What are you doing here?" he asked of Jim-Eng, whom he found strolling about on the verandah.
Jim-Eng explained in bad Malay, and speaking in that monotonous, uninterested voice of an opium smoker pretty far gone, that his house was old, the roof leaked, and the floor was rotten. So, being an old friend for many, many years, he took his money, his opium, and two pipes, and came to live in this big house.
"There is plenty of room. He smokes, and I live here. He will not smoke long," he concluded.
"Where is he now?" asked Ford.
"Inside. He sleeps," answered Jim-Eng, wearily. Ford glanced in through the doorway. In the dim light of the room he could see Almayer lying on his back on the floor, his head on a wooden pillow, the long white beard scattered over his breast, the yellow skin of the face, the half-closed eyelids showing the whites of the eye only. . . .
He shuddered and turned away. As he was leaving he noticed a long strip of faded red silk, with some Chinese letters on it, which Jim-Eng had just fastened to one of the pillars.
"What's that?" he asked.
"That," said Jim-Eng, in his colourless voice, "that is the name of the house. All the same like my house. Very good name."
Ford looked at him for awhile and went away. He did not know what the crazy-looking maze of the Chinese inscription on the red silk meant. Had he asked Jim-Eng, that patient Chinaman would have informed him with proper pride that its meaning was: "House of heavenly delight."
In the evening of the same day Babalatchi called on
