At eight o'clock, the manager, in a difficult position, went into deep thought, then abruptly ordered breakfast for two. Cars were rumbling out of the garage. The manager lost one game and proposed another. They breakfasted solidly, two bottles of yogurt and a crustly strudel apiece. The manager lost a second game and offered a third, his good eye gazing at Pepper with devoted admiration. He played an identical queen's gambit every time, indefatigably sticking to an inevitably losing variation. He had, as it were, worked out his defeat perfectly and Pepper moved his pieces absolutely automatically feeling like a programmed machine; neither in him nor in the world was there anything except a chess board, clock buttons, and a firmly fixed program of action.
At five to nine the tannoy crackled and announced in a sexless voice: "All Directorate personnel to stand by telephones. The Director will address all staff." The manager became most serious, reconnected the telephone and put the receiver to his ear. Both his eyes were now contemplating the ceiling. "Can I go, now," asked Pepper. The manager frowned horribly, placed his finger to his lips, then waved his hand at Pepper. An unpleasant quacking resounded in the receiver. Pepper left on tiptoe.
There were lots of people in the garage. Every face was stern and impressive, even solemn. No one was working, everybody had telephone receivers pressed to their ears. In the yard, only the waiter-mechanic, sweaty, red and tormented, pursued his wheel, breathing heavily. Something very important was taking place. This can't go on, thought Pepper, it just can't. I'm always left out, I never know anything, perhaps that's the whole trouble, perhaps everything's really all right, but I don't know what's what, so I'm always superfluous.
He sprang into the nearest automatic telephone, snatched the receiver, and listened eagerly. He could only hear the ringing tone. At once he was aware of a sudden fear, a nagging apprehension that he was missing something again, that somewhere everybody was getting something, and he, as usual, was going without. Leaping over the ropes and inspection pits, he crossed the construction site, gave a wide berth to a guard blocking the road with a pistol in one hand and a receiver in the other, and shinned up a ladder onto the partially-built wall. In all the windows he could make out people frozen to telephones in attitudes of concentration; just then something whined above his ear and almost at once he heard the sound of a revolver shot. He leaped down into a heap of rubbish and rushed to the service entrance. It was locked. He yanked at the handle several times until it came off. He flung it to one side and for a second debated what to do next. There was a narrow open window alongside the door and, covered in dust, his nails torn, he climbed in.
There were two tables in the room in which he found himself. At one sat Hausbotcher with a telephone. His eyes were closed, his face stony. He was pressing the receiver to his ear with his shoulder and jotting something down with a pencil on a large notepad. The other was vacant, on it stood a telephone. Pepper took off the receiver and began to listen.
