Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

5^^ Photoplay Magazine Through the night he sat low on the floor at her side as she slept, holding to a hand that was relaxed in its trust. In the hours of darkness his love blossomed as though by magic; all of the goodness that had been buried by despair years ago now suffered resurrection, and at the dawn he was far away from the petty unhappinesses and sordid weakness of the slums-people. His one ambition was to cherish the trust of this chilli and to preserve her freshness from the smudging influence of Limehouse. When he brought in a quaint old oriental doll, she stared at him curiously. "Why are you so good to me, Chink?"' she asked. But Huan merely stared deep into her lovely eyes. That day Battling Burrows learned where his child was. It happened through the tattling of one of his adherers who had come to Cheng Huans shop for a purchase. While Cheng Huan had gone out for change, the White -Blossom, upstairs, knocked a brush to the floor. The Spying One, puzzled by this noise, sneaked up the steps and peered into the room. With his discovery on his tongue, he hurried to the Battler and told him. Burrows was now across the river, undergoing rest and training for the fight that was to be staged that evening. "Lucy is gone with a Chinky," the Spying One whispered and the wrath of the Battler vocalized into a roar. He demanded details and the Spying One told how he had discovered Lucy in the room over the Chink's shop, clad in silken garments of a Manchu queen, singing contentedly, apparently happy. .\fter fueling his anger with liquor, the Battler decided not to seek revenge that night, but to wait until after his fight and then descend upon the Chink's shop. .\\\ ignorant of the Spying One's duplicity, Cheng Huan and the child spent a quiet evening together in the room over the shop. Cheng Huan tried to impart to the child, in the gentle slurred phrases of pidgin English, how great was his devotion to her and how she had come to him — as a great white bird through a pall of evil night — clarifying his vision and helping him back onto an objective road, affording him something to live for. On her part, the child, awed somewhat by the devotion of the Yellow Man. accepted his kindness with a maturing faith. In the meantime, Battling Burrows was having the hardest fight of his career. Dissipation had played havoc with his customary strength and endurance and once he was floored, ''The Limehouse Tiger"' on top him. But before the count of ten the Battler was again on his feet and eventually he bested his opponent. .^fter the battle, then went Burrows across the river, looking for the Chink who had taken away Lucy. On the way he filled himself copiously with revivifying raw gin. And while he moved toward the Chinaman"s shop, Cheng Huan was moving away from it — out on an errand and now delayed by a conversation with another Chink. The Battler discovered Lucy up in the room over the shop. But while he tore about the place, wrecking everything in his drunken effort to capture her, she eluded his arms and tearing off the silken garments for her own rags, fled from the room, down through the shop, and into the street. Here she was cornered by some allies of the Battler's who held her for him. In his grasp again, the terrified child swooned away as he dragged her through the night to his abode. When Cheng Huan returned to his shop sometime later, the deranged room above met his eye as a blur of unformed confusion. After his shaking hand had put a light to a lowburning lamp, he stared about him, fearful of