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  10 long counter and the wall, taken off a spacious, vaulted room with a
grated window and a glazed door giving daylight to the further end. The
first thing I saw right in front of me were three middle-aged men having
a sort of romp together round about another fellow with a thin, long neck
and sloping shoulders who stood up at a desk writing on a large sheet of
paper and taking no notice except that he grinned quietly to himself.
They turned very sour at once when they saw me. I heard one of them
mutter 'Hullo! What have we here?'
"'I want to see Mr. Powell, please,' I said, very civil but firm; I would
let nothing scare me away now. This was the Shipping Office right
enough. It was after 3 o'clock and the business seemed over for the day
with them. The long-necked fellow went on with his writing steadily. I
observed that he was no longer grinning. The three others tossed their
heads all together towards the far end of the room where a fifth man had
been looking on at their antics from a high stool. I walked up to him as
boldly as if he had been the devil himself. With one foot raised up and
resting on the cross-bar of his seat he never stopped swinging the other
which was well clear of the stone floor. He had unbuttoned the top of
his waistcoat and he wore his tall hat very far at the back of his head.
He had a full unwrinkled face and such clear-shining eyes that his grey
beard looked quite false on him, stuck on for a disguise. You said just
now he resembled Socrates--didn't you? I don't know about that. This
Socrates was a wise man, I believe?"
"He was," assented Marlow. "And a true friend of youth. He lectured
them in a peculiarly exasperating manner. It was a way he had."
"Then give me Powell every time," declared our new acquaintance sturdily.
"He didn't lecture me in any way. Not he. He said: 'How do you do?'
quite kindly to my mumble. Then says he looking very hard at me: 'I
don't think I know you--do I?'
"No, sir," I said and down went my heart sliding into my boots, just as
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