The Hong-Kong packet lay alongside the warehouse frontage.

Ah Cum patrolled the length of the boat innumerable times, but never letting his glance stray far from the gangplank.

This was automatically rather than thoughtfully done; habit.

His mind was busy with a resume of yesterday's unusual events.
The young man desperately ill and the girl taking care of him! Of course, there could be only one ending to such a bout with liquor, and that ending had come perhaps suddenly but not surprisingly.

But the girl stood outside the circle of Ah Cum's knowledge--rather profound--of human impulses.