the office was very untidy , with papers spilling out of a green wire basket , cascading over the scratched , ink-blotted surface of an old wooden desk and threatening to sweep away in a veritable flood telephone , blotter , pencil pot , calendar and all ; an olive green filing cabinet dented with the kind of tiny pocks you find in metal that can only have been made by a sharp pointed implement like a pair of dividers ( n.b .