The tenth part of a slate,
the merest chip of a corner, falling from the lofty summit of that pile,
would have slain elephants. And all the facade was black, black with
ages of carbonic deposit. The notion that the building was a town-hall
that had got itself misplaced and perverted gradually left you as you
gazed. You perceived its falseness. You perceived that Mr. Oxford's club
was a monument, a relic of the days when there were giants on earth,
that it had come down unimpaired to a race of pigmies, who were making
the best of it. The sole descendant of the giants was the scout behind
the door. As Mr. Oxford and Priam climbed towards it, this unique giant,
with a giant's force, pulled open the gigantic door, and Mr. Oxford and
Priam walked imperceptibly in, and the door swung to with a large
displacement of air. Priam found himself in an immense interior, under a
distant carved ceiling, far, far upwards, like heaven. He watched Mr.
Oxford write his name in a gigantic folio, under a gigantic clock. This
accomplished, Mr. Oxford led him past enormous vistas to right and left,
into a very long chamber, both of whose long walls were studded with
thousands upon thousands of massive hooks--and here and there upon a
hook a silk hat or an overcoat.
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