To Tracy these odors were suffocating, horrible, almost unendurable; but he held his peace and said nothing.

Arrived in the basement, they entered a large dining-room where thirty-five or forty people sat at a long table.

They took their places.
The feast had already begun and the conversation was going on in the liveliest way from one end of the table to the other.

The table cloth was of very coarse material and was liberally spotted with coffee stains and grease.

The knives and forks were iron, with bone handles, the spoons appeared to be iron or sheet iron or something of the sort.
The tea and coffee cups were of the commonest and heaviest and most durable stone ware.