Gibbs (Edward McWade) inquires about a room for rent.When the sisters determine that the gentleman is a suitable match for their poisoning scheme (he's "all alone in the world" and lives in a hotel), they bring out the decanter of spiked elderberry wine and offer him a glass.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.When she argued that weapons should be gathered together to combat the Alien, she was told there weren't any, and she was quarantined in the infirmary.Or Brady won't be the last man you lose to another woman," prompting Rachel to throw coffee on Kelly's T-shirt.