Through the ragged window-curtain, the light of early day steals in from a
miserable court. He lies, dressed, across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead
that has indeed given way under the weight upon it. Lying, also dressed and
also across the bed, not longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a haggard
woman. The two first are in a sleep or stupor; the last is blowing at a kind of
pipe, to kindle it. And as she blows, and shading it with her lean hand,
concentrates its red spark of light, it serves in the dim morning as a lamp to
show him what he sees of her. "Another?" says this woman, in a querulous,
rattling whisper. "Have another?"