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.
"Plain enough," said the man who had been studying his foot on the
chair.
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