Paul dived underneath the sunblind and Thor followed him.
They found themselves in what appeared to be a small square porch leading to the room within. It contained nothing but a fixed basin with a tap and a towel-rail. Here at all events was water.
Paul ran some into the basin, and Thor put his paws on the edge, reared his great body, sloped his head, and drank greedily. And all the time that curious noise continued, that indescribable irregularly recurrent sound, that was half tap, half click, with a mysterious scrape occurring every thirty seconds or so. When Thor had finished his drink, Paul formed his own hands into a cup and drank from them; he whispered to Thor to lie down, and stood himself in the open doorway leading to the room whence the sound came.
He forgot how his feet ached, he forgot how desperately hungry he was, for he felt that, at last, he had come up with the adventure he had been, questing all that long hot morning.
Never had he beheld such a delightful room. It was large and high, with two big wide-open windows, which, however, were not like ordinary windows, for they started ever so far from the ground, like those in a studio. The panelling, where it could be seen for books, was white; but there was no glare, for books were everywhere, books in many-hued bindings, making irregular patches of subdued colour. Nearly all looked as though they had sat long in their shelves, and wore the pleasant faded tints that time brings to things cared-for and well-loved. There was one line of vivid red that Paul recognised with a little thrill (for we had it at home) as the "Elephant" edition of "The man who made Mowgli." But these were on a high shelf, and the steps were too far off for him to drag them over without making a noise. Besides, for once, it was not the books that most interested Paul; it was what he afterwards described as "a kind-of-man-ness" about the room.
"It was all such a jolly muddle and so comfortable."
If there were many books there were even more papers. He didn't mean newspapers and magazines, though there were plenty of them—it was the quantities of letters that impressed him. Never had he seen so many letters, not even at Christmas. They were strewed about everywhere, and on the floor behind the great, double, knee-hole table, an open trunk was lying full of them—stuffed in pell-mell, anyhow.
All the furniture was big and solid and comfortable. There were two pianos—"a big one and a little one"; a huge sofa that invited repose on the part of the slothful; great, deep chairs; steady tables; nothing to upset anywhere; no tiresome "frippy" things.
And seated at the knee-hole table was a man who wore spectacles: a biggish man going bald, with grey hair, grey moustache, and short, closely-trimmed grey beard. Paul decided that he liked the look of him, and that there was something familiar in his appearance; that he had met this man before somewhere in a story. He knitted his brows and thought deeply, never taking his eyes off him, but he couldn't place him. Nevertheless he was sure of him. He was one of the understanding. "He didn't look a 'run-away-and-play' sort of a man," Paul said afterwards, "nor the sort who says 'my boy,' and he didn't ever—not once."
It was he who was making that queer noise. He was playing with both hands on a kind of instrument.