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MING SO was glad to observe, under the partially raised lid of the barrel, that a long overdue twilight was approaching. He was cramped from squatting on his haunches in the barrel throughout the long hours of the boat's passage upstream: the evil juice of the fish had penetrated his shoes: the sausage which he had hurriedly put in his pocket the night before tasted of fish: his hair seemed greasier than usual.
Thus it was with delight that he found the boat drawn to a wharf just as the lanterns at various mastheads began to throw circles of light on wet decks, and discovered that he could, in the comparative darkness of his part of the boat, slip unobserved from his unpleasant hiding-place and take cover on the wharf.