Dingy

The station has been refurbished both at ground level and below ground, where the wide, fluorescently lit platforms are an almost unrecognisable metamorphosis of the dingy, reeking Low Level of old.

He led her through dingy wareroom after wareroom, counting-house after counting-house, where the clerks all were silent and subdued. He led her at last into a dingy sanctum, dimly lighted by one shaded lamp. In this safe there were piles of dingy papers and more dingy ledgers; […]

I love it when they hit. You know the sound when they hit? That dingy sound, it’s like faster, and contained somehow? That’s a great sound. Happens like a fraction of a second before you know what you’ve hit, before you figure it out.