Tunnels Read Online Free PDF

the side pocket of his briefcase as he pushed open the door. Still grappling with the magazines, he backed blindly out onto the sidewalk, straight into somebody moving at great speed. Gasping as he rebounded off the short but very heavyset man he'd blundered into, Dr. Burrows dropped his briefcase and magazines. The man, who had felt as solid as a locomotive, seemed totally unaffected and merely continued on his way. Dr. Burrows, stuttering and flustered, tied to call after him to apologize, but the man strode on purposefully, readjusting his sunglasses and turning his head slightly to give Dr. Burrows an unfriendly sneer.
    Dr. Burrows was flabbergasted. It was a man-in-a-hat. Of late, he had begun to notice, among the general population of Highfield , a type of person that seemed — well, different , but without sticking out too much. Being a habitual people watcher, and having analyzed the situation as he always did, he assumed that these people had to be related to one another in some way. What surprised him most was that when he raised the subject nobody else in the Highfield area seemed to have registered at all the rather peculiarly slope-faced men wearing flat caps, black coats, and very thick dark glasses.
    As Dr. Burrows had barged into the man, slightly dislodging his jet-black glasses, he'd had a chance to see a "specimen" at close hand for the very first time. Apart from his oddly sloping face and wispy hair, he had very light blue, almost white, eyes against a pasty, translucent skin. But there was something else: A peculiar smell hung around the man, a mustiness . It reminded Dr. Burrows of the old suitcases of mildewed clothes that were occasionally dumped on the museum steps by anonymous benefactors.
    He watched the man stride purposefully down
Main Street
and into the distance, until he was only just in view. Then a passerby crossed the road, interrupting Dr. Burrows's line of sight. In that instant, the man-in-a-hat was gone. Dr. Burrows squinted through his spectacles as he continued to look for him, but although the sidewalks were not that busy, he couldn't locate him again, try as he might.
    It occurred to Dr. Burrows that he should have made the effort to follow the man-in-a-hat to see where he was going. But, mild-mannered as he was, Dr. Burrows disliked any form of confrontation and quickly reasoned with himself that this was not a good idea given the man's hostile manner. So any thought of detective work was quickly abandoned. Besides, he could find out on another day where the man, and perhaps the whole family of hated look-alikes, lived. When he was feeling a little more intrepid.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Underground, Will and Chester took turns at the rock face, which Will had identified as a type of sandstone. He was glad that he'd recruited Chester to help with the excavation, since he really seemed to have a knack for the work. He watched with quiet admiration as Chester swung the pickax with immense force and, once a fissure opened up in the face, seemed to know exactly when to pry out the loose material, which Will quickly shoveled into buckets.
    "Need a break?" he suggested, seeing that Chester was beginning to tire. "Let's take a breather." Will meant this literally, because with the entrance to the dig covered up, it all too soon became very airless and stuffy where they were, twenty feet or so from the main chamber.
    "If I take this tunnel much father," he said to Chester as they both pushed loaded wheelbarrows before them, "I'll have to sink a vertical shaft for ventilation. It's just that it's such a drag putting one of those in, when I could be making more headway down here."
    They reached the main chamber and sat in the armchairs, drinking the water appreciatively.
    "So what do we do with all this?" Chester said, indicating the filled buckets in the wheelbarrows.
    "Lug it to the surface and tip it in the gully at the side."
    "Is it all right to do that?"
    "Well, if anyone asks I just say