The Fate Joss

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CHINATOWN’S lights were aglow. Beneath the sultry night they formed an exotic glare throughout this bizarre section of Manhattan. A city within a city, Chinatown was a splash of Oriental splendor centered within drab surroundings.

Blobbed blackness fringed the Chinese quarter. To those who approached Chinatown’s center, there were darkened stretches to be passed through, secluded thoroughfares that gave no indication of the brilliance that lay ahead.

To ordinary visitors, those outlying regions offered no significance; but to those who knew the ways of Chinatown, the fringing borders were important. They were like the suburbs of a miniature metropolis. Though they seemed no part of Chinatown, they were actually inhabited by quiet, retiring Celestials, the overflow of those who dwelt in the quarter itself.

Blackened windows above obscure thoroughfares. Any one of those casements might be a lookout spot for spying eyes. On many nights, passers might traverse these streets unnoticed; but on this sultry evening, slanty eyes were sure to be on observation duty.

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