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Updated: June 16, 2025
The entertainment worth the exchange of the pure May night for a smoke-laden, stuffy interior was in none of these places.
The city turned its dreariest aspect toward the railway on blackened walls, irregular and ill-paved streets, gloomy warehouses, and over all a gray, smoke-laden atmosphere which gave it mystery and often beauty. Sometimes the softened towers of the great steel bridges rose above the river mist like fairy towers suspended between Heaven and earth.
When the door was opened, through the smoke-laden atmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of a vast, low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer standing in a row, the floor ankle-deep with sawdust, and on the counter great salad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts, and baskets of pretzels fresh from the oven, their golden knots sprinkled with white salt.
Alternating with these establishments of a free port that lives upon contraband, there were confectioneries owned by Jews, cafés and more cafés, some of the Spanish type with round, marble-topped tables, the clicking of dominoes, smoke-laden atmosphere and high-pitched discussions accompanied by vehement gestures; others resembling more the English bar, crowded with motionless, silent customers, swallowing one cocktail after another, without any other sign of emotion than a growing redness of the nose.
Their love of woman knew no gratitude for the enjoyment given to them; they merely strove to humiliate and insult the sex, to inflict upon it indescribable pain. The smoke-laden atmosphere of the room had become stifling. Their bodies at fever heat, exhaled an unwholesome odour, as their eyes gleamed and their voices sounded shrill and rabid as those of wild beasts.
The dim, smoke-laden street was unusually crowded, she thought, but she gave no attention to the passers-by, as the Arab had opened the door of the dingy-looking vehicle, and she expected to find an occupant peering out at her. The conveyance was empty! "There is some mistake," she said, glancing from the dark interior to a Somali driver, and then back to the silent messenger.
That was all he said as the black entrance grew larger before them. The engineer glanced at Fuller and Murphy, wondering if they would give the signal to slow down. Neither of them moved. Then the Texas plunged into the smoke-laden darkness. Presently there appeared a faint luminous splotch ahead of them, growing brighter as the seconds passed. They flashed out into the daylight again.
But I don't want any of Anderson Rover's pile not me. Why, your father nursed me through the worst case o' fever a miner ever had an' I ain't forgittin' it, lads. I'll stick to ye to the end." And the old miner put out his hand and gave another squeeze that made Dick wince. The Palace of the West reached, Wumble pushed his way into the smoke-laden office and to the desk.
Stuart was standing by the lofty window looking out across the Embankment. "Ten o'clock," said Dunbar. "The Commissioner will be expecting us." "I am ready," responded Stuart. Leaving Sergeant Sowerby seated at the table studying the note-book, Stuart and Dunbar proceeded to the smoke-laden room of the Assistant Commissioner.
Thus the sweat-dripping days passed, without a hint of what might be going on in the world far above, amid the roar and pounding of air and hand-drills, the noisy falling of masses of rock as these broke it loose, the constant ringing of shovels, the rumble of iron ore-cars on their thread-like rails, cries of "'sta pegado!" quickly followed by the stunning, ear-splitting dynamite blast, screams of "No vas echar!" as some one passed beneath an opening above, of "Ahora si!" when he was out of danger; the shrill warning whistling of the peons echoing back and forth through the galleries and labyrinthian side tunnels, as the crunch of shoes along the track announced the approach of some boss; the shouting of the peons "throwing" a loaded car along the track through the heavy smoke-laden air, so thick with the smell of powder and thin with oxygen that even experienced bosses developed raging headaches, and the Beau Brummel secretary of the company fell down once with dizziness and went to bed after the weekly inspection.
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