He noted now that the woman, who had bustled down the hall on her errand, was gray-haired and incredibly ugly, with a dark sour face, glowering black eyes, and a twisted mouth.

Then he saw that he was not alone in the hall-way.

Three men and two women, all poorly clad and obviously working people, were seated in meek silence on a bench beyond the hat-rack.

They glanced up at him for an instant, then resumed their patient study of the linoleum pattern on the floor at their feet.
"And will you kindly step in, sir ?" the elderly Gorgon had returned to ask.

She led Mr.Ware along the hall-way to a door near the end, and opened it for him to pass before her.
He entered a room in which for the moment he could see nothing but a central glare of dazzling light beating down from a great shaded lamp upon a circular patch of white table linen.