Around the sides of the room were ranged rows
of tables and wooden chairs, which were occupied by men and women, all
busily occupied in disposing of the villainous liquids which were
dispensed to them by so-called pretty waiter girls, who had evidently
long since become strangers to modesty and morality. The band was
playing a waltz, and the floor was filled with a motley gathering of
both sexes, who were whirling about the room, with the greatest
abandonment, dancing madly to the harsh and discordant music. The scene
was a perfect pandemonium, while boisterous laughter and loud curses
mingled with and intensified the general excitement and confusion. Both
the men and women were drinking freely, and some of them were in a wild
state of intoxication, while others had long since passed the stage of
excitement and were now dozing stupidly in the corners of the room.
Manning and his companion stood for some time gazing at the scenes
around them. The detective's mind was busy with somber meditations upon
the human degradation that was here presented. Here were women, many of
them still youthful and with marks of beauty still remaining, in spite
of their life of dissipation.
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