"Good God, man!" The loft was like a cave heated by subterranean fires.

Two long punkahs flapped languidly in the darkness, with a whine of pulleys.

Under a swinging lamp, in a pool of light and heat, four men sat playing cards, their tousled heads, bare arms, and cinglets torn open across the chest, giving them the air of desperadoes.
"Jolly boating weather," wheezed the fat Sturgeon.

He stood apart in shadow, swaying on his feet.

"What would you give," he propounded thickly, "for a hay harvest breeze ?" He climbed, or rolled, upon the billiard-table, turned head toward punkah, and suddenly lay still,--a gross white figure, collapsed and sprawling.
"How much does he think a man can stand ?" snapped Nesbit, his lean Cockney face pulled in savage lines.