Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/217

Rh language as unintelligible as Sanskrit to one uninitiated into the mysteries of colonial produce.

The dockers, huge fellows with the build of antique gods, wearing leather aprons, the muscles of their bare arms twisting like strands of a cable, flushed, hurried, lifted the huge bales with lively cries, and, having balanced the burden upon their shoulders, seemed to be carrying only a load of feathers. The truckman, in blue blouse, brown-ribbed corduroy trousers, his felt hat misshapen and discolored by the rain, was listening respectfully to Van Liere's observations.

"Minus, move a little! Let the gentleman pass," said this potentate with a smile of condescension, seeing your embarrassing situation in the wink of an eye, as you were striding over bags and cases, not knowing how your gymnastics were to end.

One of the giants removed, as if with the back of his callous hand, a tormenting barrel, and with the *Thank-you" of a rescued castaway, you finally pushed a door in the corner made by the street wall and the right-hand building, a door on the glass pane of which was the word "Offices."

But you entered only the waiting-room.

A new swarm of people. Cheer up! The leather-padded door leading to the inner rooms slid silently. Twenty tireless pens were grinding on the thick paper of the account books, or brushing over the tissue on which letters were duplicated; twenty bookkeeper's desks, back to back, extended in a line down the whole length of a room, lit from the court, by six tall windows; twenty clerks perched on as many stools, their sleeves protected by paper cornucopias, their noses buried in work, seemed not to have perceived your