They seemed to be attracted, just as he was, by that abominable slimy flow and glister of the asphalt.

Another wriggle of the latch-key, and they would be over on the top of him.
He approached his bedroom candle with infinite precaution.

He had tried to effect a noiseless entry, but every match, as it spurted and went out, was a little fiendish spit-fire tongue betraying him.

From behind a bedroom door, ajar at the dark end of the passage, the voice of Mrs.Downey gently reminded him not to forget to turn the gas out.
There was a bright clear space in his brain which Pilkington's champagne had not penetrated, so intolerably clear and bright that it hurt him to look at it.

In that space three figures reeled and whirled; three, yet one and the same; Poppy of the coster-dance, Poppy of the lunatic ballet, and Poppy of the Arabian night.