With Rudolph, the obscure garden and echoing house left a sense of magical ownership, sudden and fleeting, like riches in the Arabian Nights.

The road, leaving on the right a low hill, or convex field, that heaved against the lower stars, now led the wanderers down a lane of hovels, among dim squares of smoky lamplight.
Wu, their lantern-bearer, had turned back, and they had begun to pass a few quiet, expectant shops, when a screaming voice, ahead, outraged the evening stillness.
At the first words, Heywood doubled his pace.
"Come along.

Here's a lark--or a tragedy." Jostling through a malodorous crowd that blockaded the quarrel, they gained the threshold of a lighted shop.

Against a rank of orderly shelves, a fat merchant stood at bay, silent, quick-eyed, apprehensive.
Before him, like an actor in a mad scene, a sobbing ruffian, naked to the waist, convulsed with passion, brandished wild fists and ranted with incredible sounds.

When breath failed, he staggered, gasping, and swept his audience with the glazed, unmeaning stare of drink or lunacy.