They walked into the outer fringes of a whirlpool of noise and bedlam, rivaling that of a stock exchange or a grain pit in the middle of the harvesting season. The room covered more than an acre, with ninety per cent of the floor space devoted to adding machines, typewriters, tabulators, collators, sorters, key punches, automatic alphabetizers and the other ten per cent to their operators. A battery of sorters on their left digested stacks of small, white cards and spewed forth more stacks of them into waiting hoppers. On their right, the nearest of three switchboard operators smiled a weak greeting and turned back to her board.

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