The blow merely crushed, staggered, confused.
He stepped aside to give place to a coatless man in a pink shirt, who entered, carrying in his hands an automatic door-closing apparatus.
"Where does this go ?" inquired the man.
Dyke sat down for a moment on a seat that had been removed from a worn-out railway car to do duty in Ruggles's office.

On the back of a yellow envelope he made some vague figures with a stump of blue pencil, multiplying, subtracting, perplexing himself with many errors.
S.Behrman, the clerk, and the man with the door-closing apparatus involved themselves in a long argument, gazing intently at the top panel of the door.

The man who had come to fix the apparatus was unwilling to guarantee it, unless a sign was put on the outside of the door, warning incomers that the door was self-closing.

This sign would cost fifteen cents extra.
"But you didn't say anything about this when the thing was ordered," declared S.Behrman.

"No, I won't pay it, my friend.