Poppy Seed French Toast

Passepartout’s wander around Hong Kong’s Victoria port, with its ‘confused mass of ships of all nations’ leads him into a nearby tavern, where the effects of Papaver somniferum — the ‘sleep-bearing poppy’ — are very much in evidence. Passepartout, intoxicated by the effects of liquor, accepts one of the pipes on offer: ‘he took it, put it between his lips, lit it, drew several puffs, and his head, becoming heavy under the influence of the narcotic, fell upon the table’. The reviving effect