He pulled out his watch.
"He kept you, sir, just under three hours. I don't think this ever
happened with any of the gentlemen before."
It was only when I got out of the building that I began to walk on
air. And the human animal being averse from change and timid before the
unknown, I said to myself that I really would not mind being examined
by the same man on a future occasion. But when the time of ordeal
came round again the doorkeeper let me into another room, with the
now familiar paraphernalia of models of ships and tackle, a board for
signals on the wall, a big, long table covered with official forms
and having an unrigged mast fixed to the edge. The solitary tenant
was unknown to me by sight, though not by reputation, which was simply
execrable. Short and sturdy, as far as I could judge, clad in an old
brown morning-suit, he sat leaning on his elbow, his hand shading his
eyes, and half averted from the chair I was to occupy on the other side
of the table. He was motionless, mysterious, remote, enigmatical, with
something mournful, too, in the pose, like that statue of Giugliano (I
think) de Medici shading his face on the tomb by Michael Angelo, though,
of course, he was far, far from being beautiful.
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