The government offices appeared to be undisturbed, and certainly no
more messengers ran about than usual, the only difference was that
one or two of them were open at a very early hour. But even in them--
and Englishmen were busy in them--there seemed no excitement. Delhi
had found time in a night to catch her breath and continue listening;
for, unlike most big cities that brag with or without good reason,
Delhi is listening nearly all the time.
A man was listening in the dingiest of all the offices on the ground
floor of a big building on the side away from the street--a man in a
drab silk suit, who twisted a leather watch-guard around his thumb
and untwisted it incessantly. There was a telephone beside him, and a
fair-sized pile of telegraph forms, but beyond that not much to show
what his particular business might be. He did not look aggressive,
but he seemed nervous, for he jumped perceptibly when the telephone-bell
rang; and being a government telephone, with no commercial aims, it
did not ring loud.
"Yes," he said, with the receiver at his ear. "Yes, yes. Who else?
Oh, I forgot for the moment. Four, three, two, nine, two. Give yours!
Very well, I'm listening."
Whoever was speaking at the other end had a lot to say, and none of
it can have been expected, for the man in the drab silk suit twisted
his wrinkled face and worked his eyes in a hundred expressions that
began with displeasure and passed through different stages of
surprise to acquiescence.
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