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Page 3
The counting-room was a cubicle contrived by enclosing a corner of the
ground-floor with two walls and a ceiling of match-boarding. Into this
constricted space were huddled two imposing roll-top desks, P.
Sybarite's high counter, and the small flat desk of the shipping
clerk, with an iron safe, a Remington typewriter, a copy-press, sundry
chairs and spittoons, a small gas-heater, and many tottering columns
of dusty letter-files. The window-panes, encrusted with perennial
deposits of Atmosphere, were less transparent than translucent, and so
little the latter that electric bulbs burned all day long whenever the
skies were overcast. Also, the windows were fixed and set against the
outer air--impregnable to any form of assault less impulsive than a
stone cast by an irresponsible hand. A door, set craftily in the most
inconvenient spot imaginable, afforded both ventilation and access to
an aisle which led tortuously between bales of hides to doors opening
upon a waist-high stage, where trucks backed up to receive and to
deliver.
Immured in this retreat, P. Sybarite was very much shut away from all
joy of living--alone with his job (which at present nothing pressed)
with Giant Despair and its interlocutor Ennui, and with that blatant,
brutish, implacable Smell of Smells....
To all of these, abruptly and with ceremony, Mr. George Bross,
shipping clerk, introduced himself: a brawny young man in
shirt-sleeves, wearing a visorless cap of soiled linen, an apron of
striped ticking, pencils behind both angular red ears, and a smudge of
marking-ink together with a broad irritating smile upon a clownish
countenance.
Although in receipt of a smaller wage than P. Sybarite (who earned
fifteen dollars per week) George squandered fifteen cents on
newspapers every Sunday morning for sheer delight in the illuminated
"funny sheets."
In one hand he held an envelope.
Draping himself elegantly over Mr. Wimper's desk, George regarded P.
Sybarite with an indulgent and compassionate smile and wagged a
doggish head at him. From these symptoms inferring that his
fellow-employee was in the throes of a witticism, P. Sybarite cocked
an apprehensive eye and tightened his thin-lipped, sensitive mouth.
"O you--!" said George; and checked to enjoy a rude giggle.
At this particular moment a mind-reader would have been justified in
regarding P. Sybarite with suspicion. But beyond taking the pen from
between his teeth he didn't move; and he said nothing at all.
The shipping clerk presently controlled his mirth sufficiently to
permit unctuous enunciation of the following cryptic exclamation:
"O you Perceval!"
P. Sybarite turned pale.
"You little rascal!" continued George, brandishing the envelope.
"You've been cunning, you have; but I've found you out at last....
_Per_-ce-val!"
Over the cheeks of P. Sybarite crept a delicate tint of pink. His eyes
wavered and fell. He looked, and was, acutely unhappy.
"You're a sly one, you are," George gloated--"always signin' your name
'P. Sybarite' and pretendin' your maiden monaker was 'Peter'! But now
we know you! Take off them whiskers--Perceval!"
A really wise mind-reader would have called a policeman, then and
there; for mayhem was the least of the crimes contemplated by P.
Sybarite. But restraining himself, he did nothing more than
disentangle his legs, slip down from the tall stool, and approach Mr.
Bross with an outstretched hand.
"If that letter's for me," he said quietly, "give it here, please."
"Special d'liv'ry--just come," announced George, holding the letter
high, out of easy reach, while he read in exultant accents the
traitorous address: "'Perceval Sybarite, Esquire, Care of Messrs.
Whigham and Wimper'! O you Perceval--Esquire!"
"Give me my letter," P. Sybarite insisted without raising his voice.
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