ince. 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 . . . "

He spoke in such a spiteful tone that I thought he was going to round off
with the words: "You fool" . . . and perhaps he meant to. But what he
finished sharply with was: "Shut the door quietly after you."

And I did shut it quietly--you bet. Quick and quiet. The indomitable
spirit of that chap impressed me. I wonder sometimes whether he has
succeeded in writing himself into liberty and a pension at last, or had
to go out of his gas-lighted grave straight into that other dark one
where no