Isn’t he coming? He usually walks this way, bent and worn, thin and tenacious. He looks no different from others who go past, and yet he does when you know who he is. At least the arrow polisher thinks so. And now he must meet him. The more he thinks it over, the more frightened he becomes at the idea of a note waiting for him on his desk when he has to go home. They manage to get through the walls in this terrible house. And having once picked him out….

I’m not going home before I’ve talked to Stig, he decides. And he is so frightened by the note that he tells himself he must set aside everything that has hindered him before in approaching Stig. He will have to put it to the test: if Stig comes and tries to walk past with looking to one side as usual he will have to approach him just the same. He will have to jump in at the deep end and talk to Stig. And do it in such a way that Stig will have to stop and listen to him.

Only the serious shock he has received can drive him to this. Up to now he has been so tongue-tied by what he associates with Stig that he has never dared to do so. But now he must. He waits impatiently: polishing; keeping watch. And at last luck is with him. Stig comes.

Stig suddenly comes into view from the side passage, stooping and tall, and with his usual briefcase under his arm. He has no one with him, as is usually the case when one sees him. And he has no time to spare, hurrying along. That is usual too.

It is all too sudden for the arrow polisher. He has been trying out and testing what he wants to say, but it can be said in several different ways – and now Stig is here, now all he has to do is to say the first thing that comes into his head.

He climbs quickly down the two or three rungs of the light stepladder that he takes around the corridors with him. He stands at the foot of it and turns towards Stig who has already drawn level with him. Stig does not look as if he is going to stop this time either.

But now things are going to be different.

The arrow polisher looks longingly at his saviour. He studies his tired face and is moved strangely. Now everything will be different. A strange moment this, just before….

He approaches Stig quickly, raising his hat. ‘Good day,’ he says respectfully.

Stig slows down his pace a little and looks up. But his face is wooden, no smile relaxes it. It only hardens and becomes severe, more severe than it was before. His eyes turn cold. ‘Good day,’ he answers reluctantly and in such a way that no wish for a good day is expressed by it, but indifference or contempt. He neither nods nor touches his hat. Then he walks on. He has not paused either, merely slowed down his pace slightly.