He would also hint that he was a martyr.

And it's a fact that he had been kicked, horsewhipped, imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of pretty well every place between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a professional blackmailer.
"I suppose, in that trade, you've got to have active wits and sharp ears.
It's not likely that he overheard every word Davidson said about his dollar collecting trip, but he heard enough to set his wits at work.
"He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to the native slums to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership by the usual sort of Portuguese and a very disreputable Chinaman.

Macao Hotel, it was called, but it was mostly a gambling den that one used to warn fellows against.
Perhaps you remember?
"There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious couple, a partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman.

One of the two was Niclaus--you know.

Why! the fellow with a Tartar moustache and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only that his eyes were set straight and his face was not so flat.