Of course, the fellow was unconscious of this, as he still must be of the rare joke the flapper was exquisitely holding over his head.  His demeanour toward Bean betrayed no recognition of shares or pitchers or big red cars, nor of the ever-impending change in their relationship.  He dictated fragments of English words, and Bean reconstructed them with the cunning of a Cuvier.  He felt astute, robust, and disrespectful.  Just one wrong word from Breede and all would be over between them.  The poor old wreck didn’t dream that he had nursed a flapper in his bosom, a flapper that would just perfectly have what she wanted—­and no good fussing.

In the outer office, however, he was aware that his expansion was subtly making itself felt.  Bulger had insensibly altered and was treating him after the manner of a fellow club man.  Old Metzeger said “Good morning!” to him affectionately—­for Metzeger—­and once he detected Tully staring at him through the enlarging glasses as if in an effort to read his very soul.  But he knew his soul was not to be read by such as Tully.  Tully, back there on the Nile, would have been a dancer—­at the most, a fancy skater—­if, indeed, he had risen to the human order, and were not still a slinking gazelle.  Good name that, for Tully.  He would remember it—­gazelle!

At three o’clock he glanced aside from his typewriter to see a director enter Breede’s room.  He did not lift his look above the hem of the man’s coat, but he knew him for the quiet one.  And yet, when the door closed upon him, he seemed to become as noisy as any of them.  Bean heard his voice rising.

Another director came, the big one who gripped a cigarette with an obviously cigar mouth.  Once behind the shut door he seemed to approve of the noise and to be swelling its volume.

Three other directors hurried in, the elderly advanced dresser in the lead.  He, of course, was always indignant, but now the other two were manifesting choler equal to his own.  They puffed and glowered and, when the door had closed, they seemed to help skilfully with the uproar.  It was a mob scene.

Bean was reminded of a newspaper line he had once or twice encountered:  “The scene was one of indescribable confusion.  Pandemonium reigned!” Pandemonium indubitably seemed to reign over those directors.  He wondered.  He wondered uncomfortably.

“Buzz-z-z-z!  Buzz-z-z-z-z!  Buzz-z-z-z-z-z!”

He quit wondering.  He knew.

Yet for a moment after he stood in their presence they seemed to take no note of him.  They were not sitting decorously in chairs as he conceived that directors should.  The big one with the cigarette sat on the table, ponderously balanced with a fat knee between fat red hands.  Another stood with one foot on a chair.  Only the quiet one was properly sitting down.  The elderly advanced dresser was not even stationary.  With the faultless coat thrown back by pocketed hands, revealing a waist line greater than it should have been, he strutted and stamped.  He seemed to be trying to step holes into the rug, and to be exploding intimately to himself.