Page 159 - sons-and-lovers

Surgical Appliance Factory, and stood helplessly against the
first great parcel-rack, waiting for somebody to pick him up.
The place was still not awake. Over the counters were great
dust sheets. Two men only had arrived, and were heard
talking in a corner, as they took off their coats and rolled
up their shirt-sleeves. It was ten past eight. Evidently there
was no rush of punctuality. Paul listened to the voices of
the two clerks. Then he heard someone cough, and saw in
the office at the end of the room an old, decaying clerk, in
a round smoking-cap of black velvet embroidered with red
and green, opening letters. He waited and waited. One of
the junior clerks went to the old man, greeted him cheer-
ily and loudly. Evidently the old ‘chief’ was deaf. Then the
young fellow came striding importantly down to his coun-
ter. He spied Paul.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘You the new lad?’
‘Yes,’ said Paul.
‘H’m! What’s your name?’
‘Paul Morel.’
‘Paul Morel? All right, you come on round here.’
Paul followed him round the rectangle of counters. The
room was second storey. It had a great hole in the middle of
the floor, fenced as with a wall of counters, and down this
wide shaft the lifts went, and the light for the bottom storey.
Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole in the ceil-
ing, and one could see above, over the fence of the top floor,
some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass
roof, and all light for the three storeys came downwards,
getting dimmer, so that it was always night on the ground

1 Sons and Lovers