The drumming upon the shingle roof span-
ning the unceiled room was loud and incessant.
I had never been invited into the machine-shop--
had, indeed, been denied admittance, as had all
others, with one exception, a skilled metal worker,
of whom no one knew anything except that his name
was Haley and his habit silence. But in my spiritual
exaltation, discretion and civility were alike for-
gotten, and I opened the door. What I saw took
all philosophical speculation out of me in short
order.
Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small
table upon which a single candle made all the light
that was in the room. Opposite him, his back toward
me, sat another person. On the table between the two
was a chess-board; the men were playing. I knew
little of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the
board it was obvious that the game was near its
close. Moxon was intensely interested--not so
much, it seemed to me, in the game as in his antago-
nist, upon whom he had fixed so intent a look that,
standing though I did directly in the line of his
vision, I was altogether unobserved. His face was
ghastly white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds.
Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but that
was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his
face.
He was apparently not more than five feet in
height, with proportions suggesting those of a go-
rilla--a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick,
short neck and broad, squat head, which had a
tangled growth of black hair and was topped with
a crimson fez.
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