..!"Tiny figures silhouetted against the cloudy horizon he next day, Tom and Casy continue on to Uncle John""s farm where everyone in the extended Joad family is at breakfast, gathered to prepare for a trip westward to California.They are planning to reunite with their pardoned leader, Ben""s brother Frank, arriving at noon on the mid-day train, to seek revenge on the town""s marshal.Sternwood: I used to like mine with champagne.Champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it...I like o see people drink...You may take off your coat, sir...Too hot in here for any man who has any blood in his veins.You may smoke, too.I can still enjoy the smell of it.Nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.The emaciated Sternwood describes the dreariness of his existence.The humid hothouse is necessary for his survival and he is waiting for death - the "big sleep" of the title - in the temperature-controlled greenhouse:Sternwood: You are looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life - crippled, paralyzed in both legs, very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it""s hardly worth he name.Dax greets Mireau courteously, but he refuses a chair.Mireau moves continually throughout the scene (putting himself in and out of focus), while the stoic Dax remains stationary:Mireau: I never got the habit of sitting.