“Helluva job,” the Negro said. “No Christmas and Easter for me, you know. At times like that nobody want any certificate at all. And every day, whether I search for ten or two or no certificates, that damn clerk inside there got to get his twenty cigarettes.”

Mr. Biswas began to move away.

“Still, if you know anybody who want a certificate-birth, death, marriage, marriage in extremis -send them to me. I come here every morning at eight o”clock sharp. The name is Pastor.”

Mr. Biswas left Pastor, overwhelmed by the thought that in the office behind the green notice-board records were kept of every birth and death. And they had nearly missed him! He went down the steps into St. Vincent Street and continued south towards the masts. Even Pastor, for all his grumbling, had found his place. What had driven him on a day in 1919 to take a seat outside the Registrar-General’s Department and wait for illiterates wanting certificates?

He had thought himself back into the mood he had known at Green Vale, when he couldn’t bear to look at the newspapers on the wall. And now he perceived that the starts of apprehension he felt at the sight of every person in the street did not come from fear at all; only from regret, envy, despair.

And, thinking of the newspapers on the barrackroom wall, he was confronted with the newspaper offices: the Guardian, the Gazette, the Mirror, the Sentinel, facing each other across the street. Machinery rattled like distant trains; through open windows came the warm smell of oil, ink and paper. The Sentinel was the paper for which Misir, the Aryan, was a cent-a-line country correspondent. All the stories Mr. Biswas had got by heart from the newspapers in the barrackroom returned to him. Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when… Passers-by stopped and stared yesterday when…

He turned down a lane, pushed open a door on the right, and then another. The noise of machinery was louder. An important, urgent noise, but it did not intimidate him. He said to the man behind the high caged desk, “I want to see the editor.”

Amazing scenes were witnessed in St. Vincent Street yesterday when Mohun Biswas, 31…

“You got an appointment?”

… assaulted a receptionist.

“No,” Mr. Biswas said irritably.

In an interview with our reporter… In an interview with our special correspondent late last night Mr. Biswas said…

“The editor is busy. You better go and see Mr. Woodward.”

“You just tell the editor I come all the way from the country to see him.”

Amazing scenes were witnessed in St. Vincent Street yesterday when Biswas, 31, unemployed, of no fixed address, assaulted a receptionist at the offices of the TRINIDAD SENTINEL. People ducked behind desks as Biswas, father of four, walked into the building with guns blazing, shot the editor and four reporters dead, and then set fire to the building. Passers-by stopped and stared as the flames rose high, fanned by a strong breeze. Several tons of paper were destroyed and the building itself gutted. In an exclusive interview with our special correspondent late last night Mr. Biswas said…

“This way,” the receptionist said, climbing down from his desk, and led Mr. Biswas into a large room which belied the urgent sounds of typewriters and machinery. Many typewriters were idle, many desks untenanted. A group of men in shirtsleeves stood around a green water-cooler in one corner; other groups of two or three were seated on desks; one man was spinning a swivel-chair with his foot. There was a row of frosted-glass cubicles along one wall, and the receptionist, going ahead of Mr. Biswas, knocked on one of these, pushed the door open, allowed Mr. Biswas to enter, and closed the door.

A small fat man, pink and oiled from the heat, half rose from behind a desk littered with paper. Slabs of lead, edged with type, served as paperweights. And Mr. Biswas was thrilled to see the proof of an article, headlined and displayed. It was a glimpse of a secret; isolated on the large white sheet, the article had an eminence tomorrow’s readers would never see. Mr. Biswas’s excitement increased. And he liked the man he saw before him.

“And what is your story?” the editor asked, sitting down.

“I don’t have a story. I want a job.”

Mr. Biswas saw almost with delight that he had embarrassed the editor; and he pitied him for not having the decision to throw him out. The editor went pinker and looked down at the proof. He was unhappy in the heat and seemed to be melting. His cheeks flowed into his neck; his neck bulged over his collar; his round shoulders drooped; his belly hung over his waistband; and he was damp all over. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Have you worked on a paper before?”

Mr. Biswas thought about the articles he had promised to write, but hadn’t, for Misir’s paper, which had never appeared. “Once or twice,” he said.

The editor looked at the door, as though for help. “Do you mean once? Or do you mean twice?”

“I have read a lot.” Mr. Biswas said, getting out of dangerous ground.

The editor played with a slab of lead.

“Hall Caine, Marie Corelli, Jacob Boehme, Mark Twain. Hall Caine, Mark Twain,” Mr. Biswas repeated. “Samuel Smiles.”

The editor looked up.

“Marcus Aurelius.”

The editor smiled.

“Epictetus.”

The editor continued to smile, and Mr. Biswas smiled back, to let the editor know that he knew he was sounding absurd.

“You read those people just for pleasure, eh?”

Mr. Biswas recognized the cruel intent of the question, but he didn’t mind. “No,” he said. “Just for the encouragement.” All his excitement died.

There was a pause. The editor looked at the proof. Through the frosted glass Mr. Biswas saw figures passing in the newsroom. He became aware of the noise again: the traffic in the street, the regular rattle of machinery, the intermittent chatter of typewriters, occasional laughter.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one.”

“You have come from the country, you are thirty-one, you have never written, and you want to be a reporter. What do you do?”

Mr. Biswas thought of estate-driver, exalted it to overseer, rejected it, rejected shopkeeper, rejected unemployed. He said, “Sign-painter.”

The editor rose. “I have just the job for you.”

He led Mr. Biswas out of the office, through the newsroom (the group around the water-cooler had broken up), past a machine unrolling sheets of typewritten paper, into a partially dismantled room where carpenters were at work, through more rooms, and then into a yard. Down the lane at one end Mr. Biswas could see the street he had left a few minutes before.

The editor walked about the yard, pointing. “Here and here,” he said. “And here.”

Mr. Biswas was given paint and a brush, and he spent the rest of the afternoon writing signs: No Admittance to Wheeled Vehicles, No Entry, Watch out for Vans, No Hands Wanted.

Around him machinery clattered and hummed; the carpenters beat rhythms on the nails as they drove them in.

Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when…

“Tcha!” he exclaimed angrily.

Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when Mohun Biswas, 31, a sign-painter, set to work on the offices of the TRINIDAD SENTINEL. Passers-by stopped and stared as Biswas, father of four, covered the walls with obscene phrases. Women hid their faces in their hands, screamed and fainted. A traffic jam was created in St. Vincent Street and police, under Superintendent Grieves, were called in to restore order. Interviewed by our special correspondent late last night, Biswas said…

“Didn’t even know who Marcus Aurelius was, the crab-catching son of a bitch.”

… interviewed late last night, Biswas… Mr. Biswas said, “The ordinary man cannot be expected to know the meaning of ‘No Admittance’.”