The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER VIII THE BEGGAR'S STAFF In a long, low, and ill-lighted room a number of men and women were seated at tables, some of them engaged in eating their suppers, and all having drinking materials before them. Though the weather was so cold without, an intense heat pervaded this place; for at one end was a fire which blazed from an enormous kitchen grate half-way up the wide- mouthed chimney. The cloud of tobacco smoke which spread like a haze throughout the apartment, and appeared to hang like a mass of dingy drapery to the ceiling, augmented this heat, and produced a stifling sensation in Page’s throat. The vapour appeared to be of a darker hue in consequence of the blackness of the ceiling and the walls, which were seen dimly through it; while the floor was so begrimed with dirt that it seemed as if the cleansing effect of water was unknown at the Beggar’s Staff. On the side of the room nearest to the street there was a long and very narrow window, covered with a blind of baize which once was green, but had completely faded into a dirty brown. On the opposite side was a semicircular counter, or bar, behind which an open door afforded a glimpse of a little den, denominated ‘ the parlour.” Within the bar stood a fat, burly, red-faced man, with a dirty cotton nightcap upon his head and a short pipe in his mouth. Having thrown off his coat in consequence of the heat, he was now in his shirt-sleeves; and his linen was certainly the foulest ever thus displayed. His countenance was sinister and forbidding; and his bloated appearance indicated that he was no indifferent admirer of his own liquors. 59 (C(O) ail Doo (CO)