never have the pluck to open one of them. Thinking's no good
for one's nerve. I concluded I would give up the whole business. But I
didn't give up in the end, and I'll tell you what stopped me. It was
the recollection of that confounded doorkeeper who had called after me.
I felt sure the fellow would be on the look-out at the head of the
stairs. If he asked me what I had been after, as he had the right to
do, I wouldn't know what to answer that wouldn't make me look silly if
no worse. I got very hot. There was no chance of slinking out of this
business.

"I had lost my bearings somehow down there. Of the many doors of
various sizes, right and left, a good few had glazed lights above; some
however must have led merely into lumber rooms or such like, because
when I brought myself to try one or two I was disconcerted to find that
they were locked. I stood there irresolute and uneasy like a baffled
thief. The confounded basement was as still as a grave and I became
aware of my heart beats. Very uncomfortable sensation. Never happened
to me before or since. A bigger door to the left of me, with a large
brass handle looked as if it might lead into the Shipping Office. I
tried it, setting my teeth. `Here goes!'

"It came open quite easily. And lo! the place it opened into was hardly
any bigger than a cupboard. Anyhow it wasn't more than ten feet by
twelve; and as I in a way expected to see the big shadowy cellar-like
extent of the Shipping Office where I had been once or twice before, I
was extremely startled. A gas bracket hung from the middle of the
ceiling over a dark, shabby writing-desk covered with a litter of
yellowish dusty documents. Under the flame of the single burner which
made the place ablaze with light, a plump, little man was writing hard,
his nose very near the desk. His head was perfectly bald and about the
same drab tint as the papers. He appeared pretty dusty too.

"I didn't notice whether there were any cobwebs on him, but I shouldn't
wonder if there were because he looked as though he had been imprisoned
for years in that little hole. The way he dropped his pen and sat
blinking my way upset me very much. And his dungeon was hot and musty;
it smelt of gas and mushrooms, and seemed to be somewhere 120 feet below
the ground. Solid, heavy stacks of paper filled all the corners
half-way up to the ceiling. And when the thought flashed upon me that
these were the premises of the Marin