A thick yellow atmosphere of cigarette smoke, through which the inmates appeared like brown shadows, pervaded the room.
The young man hesitated before this pestilential interior, and took a seat on a bench on the veranda.

After a moment's interval, the yellow landlord came to the door with a look of inquiry, which Guest answered by a demand for lodging and supper.

When the landlord had vanished again in the cigarette fog, the several other guests, one after the other, appeared at the doorway, with their cigarettes in their mouths and their cards still in their hands, and gazed upon him.
There may have been some excuse for their curiosity.

As before hinted, Guest's appearance in his overalls and woolen shirt was somewhat incongruous, and, for some inexplicable reason, the same face and figure which did not look inconsistent in rags and extreme poverty now at once suggested a higher social rank both of intellect and refinement than his workman's dress indicated.

This, added to his surliness of manner and expression, strengthened a growing suspicion in the mind of the party that he was a fugitive from justice--a forger, a derelict banker, or possibly a murderer.