Even the long row of the Embankment gas-lamps, stretching right and left, scarcely trembled in the still, warm, caressing air.

The stars overhead looked down with many blinkings upon the enormous pile of the Grand Babylon, and the moon regarded it with bland and changeless face; what they thought of it and its inhabitants cannot, unfortunately, be recorded.

What Theodore Racksole thought of the moon can be recorded: he thought it was a nuisance.

It somehow fascinated his gaze with its silly stare, and so interfered with his complex meditations.

He glanced round at the well-dressed and satisfied people--his guests, his customers.