He shambled to his desk and dug frantically in the drawer and came back with a glass. He held it above the stamp and peered through it and he had been right — there were no markings on the stamp. It was a mere yellow square of paper that was rather thick and pebbly, as if it were made up of tiny grains of sand.
He straightened up and spooned broth into his mouth and frantically flipped the pages of his mental catalogue, but he got no clue. So far as he could recall, he'd never seen or heard of that particular stamp before.
He examined the postmarks with the glass and some of them he could recognize and there were others that he couldn't, but that made no difference, for he could look them up, at a later time, in one of the postmark and cancellation handbooks. He got the distinct impression, however, that the planet, or planets, of origin must lie Libra-ward, for all the postmarks he could recognize trended in that direction.
He laid the glass away and turned his full attention to the broth, being careful of his whiskers. Whiskers, he reminded himself, were no excuse for one to be a sloppy eater.
The spoon turned in his hand at that very moment and some of the broth spilled down his beard and some spattered on the table, but the most of it landed on the cover with the yellow stamp.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tried to wipe the cover clean, but it wouldn't wipe. The envelope was soggy and the stamp was ruined with the grease and he said a few choice cusswords, directed at his clumsiness.
Then he took the dripping cover by one corner and hunted until he found the wastebasket and dropped the cover in it.
He was glad to get back from the weekend at Hudson's Bay.
Tony was a fool, he thought, to sink so much money in such a fancy place. He had no more prospects than rabbit and his high-pressure deals always seemed to peter out, but he still went on talking big and hung onto that expensive summer place. Maybe, Packer thought, that was the way to do it these days; maybe if you could fool someone into thinking you were big, you might have better chance of getting into something big. Maybe that was the way it worked, but he didn't know.
He stopped in the lobby to pick up his mail, hoping there might be a package from PugAlNash. In the excitement of leaving for the weekend, he'd forgotten to take along the box of leaf and three days without it had impressed upon him how much he had come to rely upon it. Remembering how low his supply was getting he became a little jittery to think that more might not be forthcoming.
There was a batch of letters, but no box from Pug.
And he might have known, he told himself, that there wouldn't be, for the box never came until he was entirely out. At first, he recalled, he wondered by what prophetic insight Pug might have known when the leaf was gone, how he could have gauged the shipping time to have it arrive exactly when there was need of it. By now he no longer thought about it, for it was one of those unbelievable things it does no good to think about.
"Glad to have you back," the clerk told him cheerfully. "You had a good weekend, Mr. Packer?"
"Tolerable," growled Packer, grumpily, heading for the elevator.
Before he reached it, he was apprehended by Elmer Lang, the manager of the building.
"Mr. Packer," he whinnied, "I'd like to talk to you."
"Well, go ahead and talk."
"It's about the mice, Mr. Packer."
"What mice?"
"Mrs. Foshay tells me there are mice in your apartment."
Packer drew himself up to the fullness of his rather dumpy height.
"They are your mice, Lang," he said. "You get rid of them."
Lang wrung his hands. "But how can I, Mr. Packer? It's the way you keep your place. All that litter in there. You've got to clean it up."
"That litter, I'll have you know, sir, is probably one of the most unique stamp collections in the entire galaxy. I've gotten behind a little in keeping it together, true, but I will not have you call it litter."
"I could have Miles, the caretaker, help you get it straightened out."
"I tell you, sir," said Packer, "the only one who could help me is one trained in philately. Does your caretaker happen to be —»
"But, Mr. Packer," Lang pleaded, "all that paper and all those boxes are nesting places for them. I can do nothing about the mice unless I can get in there and get some of it cleared away."
"Cleared away!" exploded Packer. "Do you realize, sir, what you are talking of? Somewhere hidden in that vast stock of material, is a certain cover — to you, sir, an envelope with stamps and postmarks on it — for which I have been offered a quarter million dollars if I ever turn it up. And that is one small piece of all the material I have there. I ask you, Lang, is that the sort of stuff that you clear away?"
"But, Mr. Packer, I cannot allow it to go on. I must insist —»
The elevator arrived and Packer stalked into it haughtily, leaving the manager standing in the lobby, twisting at his hands.
Packer whuffled his moustache at the operator.
"Busybody," he said, "What was that, sir?"
"Mrs. Foshay, my man. She's a busybody."
"I do believe," said the operator" judiciously, "that you may be entirely right."
Packer hoped the corridor would be empty and it was. He unlocked his door and stepped inside.
A bubbling noise stopped him in his tracks.
He stood listening, unbelieving, just a little frightened.
The bubbling noise went on and on.
He stepped cautiously out into the room and as he did he saw it.
The wastebasket beside the desk was full of a bubbling yellow stuff that in several places had run down the sides and formed puddles on the floor.
Packer stalked the basket, half prepared to turn and run.
But nothing happened. The yellowness in the basket simply kept on bubbling.
It was a rather thick and gooey mess, not frothy, and the bubbling was no more than a noise that it was making, for in the strict sense of the word, he saw, it was not bubbling.
Packer sidled closer and thrust out a hand toward the basket. It did not snap at him. It paid no attention to him.
He poked a finger at it and the stuff was fairly solid and slightly warm and he got the distinct impression that it was alive.
And immediately he thought of the broth-soaked cover be had thrown in the basket. It was not so unusual that he should think of it, for the yellow of the brew within the basket was the exact color of the stamp upon the cover,
He walked around the desk and dropped the mail he'd picked up in the lobby. He sat down ponderously in the massive office chair.
So a stamp had come to life, he thought, and that certainly was a queer one. But no more queer, perhaps, than the properties of many other stamps, for while Earth had exported the idea of their use, a number of peculiar adaptations of the idea had evolved.
• And now-, he thought a little limply, — you have to get this mess in the basket out of here before Lang comes busting in.-
He worried a bit about what Lang had said about cleaning up the place and he got slightly sore about it, for he paid good money for these diggings and he paid promptly in advance and he was never any bother. And besides, he'd been here for twenty years, and Lang should consider that.
He finally got up from the chair and lumbered around the desk. He bent and grasped the wastebasket, being careful to miss the places where the yellow goo had run down the sides, He tried to lift it and the basket did not move. He tugged as hard as he could pull and the basket stayed exactly where it was. He squared off and aimed a kick at it and the basket didn't budge.
He stood off a ways and glared at it, with his whiskers bristling. As if he didn't have all the trouble that he needed, without this basket deal! Somehow or other, he was going to have to get the apartment straightened out and get rid of the mice, He should be looking for the Polaris cover. And he'd lost or mislaid his tongs and would have to waste his time going out to get another pair.