The man reached inside a pocket of the black broadcloth coat he'd draped over the back of his chair and withdrew a deck of cards, which he fanned in one hand, then bent back and riffed rapidly into the palm of his other.

Meanwhile he surveyed the room as minutely as if it had been a museum,--trying the rocking-chair, examining pictures, snapping vases with his unpared nails, opening costly books, smelling of scent-bottles, scanning the anti-Macassars and the Berlin-wool mats.

After nearly 40 years of continuous broadcast in Hong Kong, a 24-hour transmission of the BBC World Service will go silent in the former British colony, replaced with programming from China's state radio channel. The move by Radio Television Hong Kong, owned by the local government, was meant to enhance the cultural exchange between the mainland and Hong Kong, a spokesman said.

Typical examples of static sites include small-business web sites that serve as online brochures.