It seems to the arrow polisher that he must have that answer, that deep voice to confirm his words and tell him that he is justified. He must have it, wherever it may come from!

It does not come. He is abandoned. The money is turning cold inside his jacket. He is on his way to his room. Now he can walk faster too.

Now don’t get upset, he tells himself. Nobody need have seen me, and nobody can possibly know what I was doing there. It’s just that I’m hungry and depressed after all this. It’s late. Frank and Freda will be wondering what’s become of me. When I get home Freda will have a meal ready for me, as she always does.

It reassures him to be able to imagine it: Freda is getting the meal ready as she always does. Nothing has changed. He has done his duty, and it was not pleasant, but now it’s over and now he’s going home as he always does. He’s not going to think about that note. He pushes it out of his mind as he walks along.

He dare not risk letting his distorted voice sound any more. He meets some acquaintances, the kind who are not too superior to pause beside his ladder and chat – but he hurries past them. They must not hear his voice. They might wonder what it meant.

Home to Frank and Freda now! He wants to be with them in the knowledge that he will soon make them happy by giving them something they want, and that it might be possible to buy somewhere. He wants to sit imagining the look on Freda’s face when he comes home with her present.

Dear Freda, he thinks, desperately grasping joy wherever he can find it, the joy he has had in being her guardian and breadwinner. He has so many pleasant memories of the simple home that the three of them have shared. For a brief moment he feels warm and happy.

But it seems like the briefest moment possible. It recedes. The money in his pocket spreads a chill – and however much he grasps at memories he can see only the questioning faces of Frank and Freda as they have been recently.

Well well, he must go home to them anyway – away from these silent walls.

He hurries on.

Then something occurs which could not fail to happen: from out of a side passage comes a tall youngish man with a large briefcase under his arm. Stig, as usual. The arrow polisher knows he is dreading this meeting, and now here it is. There is no mercy; he is not to be spared. There is Stig, about to cross the corridor.

No use turning to run. He must just take this meeting as it comes.

And now it is happening. What shall I –?

Stig is staring straight in front of him as he usually does when he meets the arrow polisher. But before the arrow polisher is aware of what he is doing he is nodding and smiling at Stig. There is this smile on his face, wherever it may have come from, and he directs it at Stig. He was unaware of it before it was there.