And he wondered, too, what Pug did with the cigars that he sent him in exchange for the little boxes of leaf—eat them, smoke them, smell them, roll in them or rub them in his hair? If he had hair, of course.
He shook his head and closed the door and went out into the hall, being doubly sure that his door was locked behind him. He would not put it past his neighbors, especially the Widow Foshay, to sneak in behind his back.
The hall was empty and he was glad of that. He rang almost stealthily for the lift, hoping that his luck would hold.
It didn’t.
Down the hall came the neighbor from next door. He was the loud and flashy kind, and without any encouragement at all, he’d slap one on the back.
“Good morning, Clyde!” he bellowed happily from afar.
“Good morning, Mr. Morton,” Packer replied, somewhat icily. Morton had no right to call him Clyde. No one ever called him Clyde, except sometimes his nephew, Anton Camper, called him Uncle Clyde, although he mostly called him Unk. And Tony, Packer reminded himself, was a worthless piece—always involved in some fancy scheme, always talking big, but without much to show for it. And besides, Tony was crooked—as crooked as a cat.
Like myself, Packer thought, exactly like myself. Not like the most of the rest of them these days, who measured to no more than just loud-talking boobies.
In my day, he told himself with fond remembrance, I could have skinned them all and they’d never know it until I twitched their hides slick off.
“How is the stamp business this morning?” yelled Morton, coming up and clapping Packer soundly on the back.
“I must remind you, Mr. Morton, that I am not in the stamp business,” Packer told him sharply. “I am interested in stamps and I find it most absorbing and I could highly recommend it –”
“But that is not just what I meant,” explained Morton, rather taken aback. “I didn’t mean you dealt in stamps …”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Packer, “to a limited extent. But not as a regular thing and certainly not as a regular business. There are certain other collectors who are aware of my connections and sometimes seek me out –”
“That’s the stuff!” boomed Morton, walloping him on the back again in sheer good fellowship. “If you have the right connections, you get along O.K. That works in any line. Now, take mine, for instance …”
The elevator arrived and rescued Packer.
In the lobby, he headed for the desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Packer,” said the clerk, handing him some letters. “There is a bag for you and it runs slightly heavy. Do you want me to get someone to help you up with it?”
“No, thank you,” Packer said. “I am sure that I can manage.”
The clerk hoisted the bag atop the counter and Packer seized it and let it to the floor. It was fairly large—it weighed, he judged, thirty pounds or so—and the shipping tag, he saw with a thrill of anticipation, was almost covered with stamps of such high denominations they quite took his breath away.
He looked at the tag and saw that his name and address were printed with painful precision, as if the Earthian alphabet was something entirely incomprehensible to the sender. The return address was a mere jumble of dots and hooks and dashes that made no sense, but seemed somewhat familiar, although Packer at the moment was unable to tell exactly what they were. The stamps, he saw, were Iota Cancri, and he had seen stamps such as them only once before in his entire life. He stood there, mentally calculating what their worth might be.
He tucked the letters under his arm and picked up the bag. It was heavier than he had expected and he wished momentarily that he had allowed the clerk to find someone to carry it for him. But he had said that he would carry it and he couldn’t very well go back and say he’d rather not. After all, he assured himself, he wasn’t quite that old and feeble yet.
He reached the elevator and let the bag down and stood facing the grillwork, waiting for the cage.
A birdlike voice sounded from behind him and he shivered at it, for he recognized the voice—it was the Widow Foshay.
“Why, Mr. Packer,” said the Widow, gushingly, “how pleasant to find you waiting here.”
He turned around. There was nothing else for it; he couldn’t just stand there, with his back to her.
“And so loaded down!” the Widow sympathized. “Here, do let me help you.”
She snatched the letters from him.
“There,” she said triumphantly, “poor man; I can carry these.”
He could willingly have choked her, but he smiled instead. It was a somewhat strained and rather ghastly smile, but he did the best he could.
“How lucky for me,” he told her, “that you came along. I’d have never made it.”
The veiled rebuke was lost on her. She kept on bubbling at him.
“I’m going to make beef broth for lunch,” she said, “and I always make too much. Could I ask you in to share it?”
“Impossible,” he told her in alarm. “I am very sorry, but this is my busy day. I have all these, you see.” And he motioned at the mail she held and the bag he clutched. He whuffled through his whiskers at her like an irate walrus, but she took no notice.
“How exciting and romantic it must be,” she gushed, “getting all these letters and bags and packages from all over the galaxy. From such strange places and from so far away. Someday you must explain to me about stamp collecting.”
“Madam,” he said a bit stiffly, “I’ve worked with stamps for more than twenty years and I’m just barely beginning to gain an understanding of what it is all about. I would not presume to explain to someone else.”
She kept on bubbling.
Damn it all, he thought, is there no way to quiet the blasted woman?
Prying old biddy, he told himself, once again whuffling his whiskers at her. She’d spend the next three days running all about and telling everyone in the entire building about her strange encounter with him and what a strange old coot he was. “Getting all those letters from all those alien places,” she would say, “and bags and packages as well. You can’t tell me that stamps are the only things in which he’s interested. There is more to it than that; you can bet your bottom dollar on it.”
At his door she reluctantly gave him back his letters.
“You won’t reconsider on that broth?” she asked him, “It’s more than just ordinary broth. I pride myself on it. A special recipe.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He unlocked his door and started to open it. She remained standing there.
“I’d like to invite you in,” he told her, lying like a gentleman, “but I simply can’t. The place is a bit upset.”
Upset was somewhat of an understatement.
Safely inside, he threaded his way among piles of albums, boxes, bags and storage cases, scattered everywhere.
He finally reached the desk and dropped the bag beside it. He leafed through the letters and one was from Dahib and another was from the Lyraen system and the third from Muphrid, while the remaining one was an advertisement from a concern out on Mars.
He sat down in the massive, upholstered chair behind his desk and surveyed the room.
Someday he’d have to get it straightened out, he told himself. Undoubtedly there was a lot of junk he could simply throw away and the rest of it should be boxed and labeled so that he could lay his hands upon it. It might be, as well, a good idea to make out a general inventory sheet so that he’d have some idea what he had and what it might be worth.