"Conrad, Joseph - Chance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

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 Marine
Board and that this fellow must be connected in some way with ships
and sailors and the sea, my astonishment took my breath away. One
couldn't imagine why the Marine Board should keep that bald, fat
creature slaving down there. For some reason or other I felt sorry
and ashamed to have found him out in his wretched captivity. I
asked gently and sorrowfully: "The Shipping Office, please."

He piped up in a contemptuous squeaky voice which made me start:
"Not here. Try the passage on the other side. Street side. This
is the Dock side. You've lost your way . . . "