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Updated: July 20, 2025
One of his self-imposed tasks was to go about the house after Lester, or the servants, turning out the gas-jets or electric-light bulbs which might accidentally have been left burning. That was a sinful extravagance. Again, Lester's expensive clothes, which he carelessly threw aside after a few month's use, were a source of woe to the thrifty old German.
The gas-jets shone more clearly; the 'buses broke into a decorous trot. The long line of lights came out suddenly, crossing each other like a string of many-coloured gems. Outside the Tube station they paused as though the same thought had struck both of them. "It is like the washing of the week before last," Mary said, as the indescribable odour floated out to them.
Then Betsy Montmorenci's creamy face would grow scarlet under the gas-jets, and she would glower and draw her sables around her, and look round involuntarily, to see if any of her Kensington friends were within earshot.
Wharf-rats as long as the forearm of a man crept up the culverted channels of Dock Street to run through the apartments at will. Scores of clerks worked under gas-jets, where light and air were not any too abundant, keeping track of the firm's vast accounts.
Having descended the small staircase, they found themselves on the second floor, on the spacious landing of the grand staircase. And Pierre was surprised and saddened by the scanty illumination, which, as in some dingy lodging-house, was limited to a few gas-jets, placed far apart, their yellow splotches but faintly relieving the deep gloom of the lofty, endless corridors.
This mysterious place was situated in a long, rambling building through which we had to move cautiously so as not to stumble into some pit or dangerous hole or trap-door. Here were no electric lights to drive away the gloom, here no gas-jets to show us where we were treading, nothing but an occasional lamp dimly burning. Yet we went on as if drawn by a magic spell.
Far down in the dark court the gas-jets flickered and flared. From the distance came the softened rumble of a midnight cab, which, drawing nearer and nearer and passing the hotel with a rollicking rattle of wheels and laughing voices, died away on the smooth pavement by the Luxembourg Gardens. The voice had stopped capriciously in the middle of the song.
The room became more and more close, none of them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances leave the cards.
With their exit an abrupt silence fell, and Maurice sank into a heavy sleep, in which he saw flowery meadows and heard a gently trickling brook.... "Now then, up with you! get along!" some one was shouting in his ear, and, bit by bit, a pasty-faced waiter entered his field of view. "It's past time, anyhow," and yawning loudly, the waiter turned out all the gas-jets but one. "Don't yer hear?
He remembered yesterday afternoon, of course. About half- past-five o'clock he was standing at the door of his shop. It was directly facing Daniel Multenius's shop door. The darkness had already come on, and there was also a bit of a fog in the street: not much, but hazy, as it were. Daniel Multenius's window was lighted, but the light was confined to a couple of gas-jets.
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