Why should I be so hellishly tormented when all I’ve done is leave people in peace? he says, getting down on his knees to pick up the stamps again with the tweezers.

He could easily have messed it all up, he knows. I’m so careful to see that the perforations are correct. I might easily have crumpled something, behaving like that. I must control myself. He picks up the stamps lying there with their severed heads and ships and towers and animals, and sees that no harm has been done after all.

I’m not going out, he says flatly. For that is what is tormenting him. He brings out a truth from the stack and insists that he is on the right side.

That work outside must be done by people whose talents lie in that direction. The people involved are most probably the sort who can’t do anything else. Everyone ends up where his talents lie, he tells himself. But we, who are dealing with matters that are not for everybody, we ought not to join them; we must sacrifice ourselves to the tasks we can do better than the others. What would be gained if I ran about out there with messages and illegal documents? I would be quite unfitted for it. Any half-grown errand-boy can do it far better. And the fellows who are playing around with such dangerous matters as to set their own lives at risk – they ought to remember that first and foremost there must be someone to stay behind to attend to things. As well as those who have something to attend to. I don’t suppose they’d want to sacrifice so much for a deserted house?

I ask you! he says, staring balefully out into the room as if someone were standing pestering him incessantly.

Perhaps they think we have an easy job, those of us who will have the responsibility for what’s left? Those of us who bear it know that it’s a heavy burden. Don’t they realize that it can be quite an easy matter sometimes just to plunge headlong into danger, and grimace and fight, without ever having to think about it?

I ask you! he says, and works himself up into such a rage that he leaves some of his stamps lying out of order on the edge of the desk.

Then the time comes when he has to be warned again, and in earnest. There is a sharp knock at the door.

He turns pale. The room blackens. He grips the edge of the desk. No no, he thinks, I won’t. I can’t. It isn’t for me. I made up my mind a long time ago. I have other duties.

The knock is not repeated and no one comes in. But he stands trembling from head to foot, waiting for what will happen next.

Nothing else happens.

Three sharp taps and then silence.

But I can’t join in any of this! I have none of the ability that’s needed there. It would only harm them and put them in danger.