was completed he put a tablet bearing a number on each tray. The men then took the contents of the trays and placed them on the shelves under corresponding numbers to those on the Recorder's tablet. All this would probably occupy about half-an-hour from the time the ten men entered until they left. During the whole of this time not a word was spoken. Everything being done in absolute silence, save the scratching of the writing-pin on the metal surface, and the light jingling of the plates against one another, there was no noise. When the first ten men left, several other batches of ten came in. The same routine was gone through with each batch; and although we must have sat for more than two hours in all I did not weary, the fact being that I amused myself studying the strange looking men that brought in the records.
After he was finished, the Recorder rose, and, asking me to follow him, we passed through a door and entered a very large room
