t not touch anything. If you do, you
can never come here again."

Having passed through several smaller rooms, they emerged finally into a
hall so bright and spacious that Keith stopped with a gasp and for a
moment thought himself in the open air again. It was as wide as the
building itself and three sides were full of large windows A counter of
mahogany that looked miles long ran from one end to the other. The place
behind it contained many desks so tall that Keith could not have reached
the tops of them with his raised hand. But from a distance he could see
that they were full of tempting things--paper and pens and pencils, red
bars of sealing wax, glue-pots and rulers and glistening shears.

Two men, also in their shirt-sleeves, were busy at the desks, dusting
them and arranging the things on top of them. And the father quickly
went to work in the same way.

It seemed interesting to Keith, who would have liked to try his hand at
it. But it also disconcerting for some reason he could not explain and
for a while he watched the father as if unwilling to believe his own
eyes. Somehow it did not tally with certain notions formed in Keith's
head on the night when the church was burning. At last he up to his
father and asked:

"Is this where you always work?"

"No," was the answer given with a peculiar grimness. "This is for the
officials."

"What are they?"

"Oh, tellers and cashiers and bookkeepers."

Keith noted the words for future inquiries. For the moment they meant
nothing to him.

"Why are you not here too," he persisted.

"Because I am only an attendant--a mere _vaktmaestare_. That is a fact
you had better fix in your mind once for all, my boy."

"Is that your little boy, Wellander," one of the other men called out at
that moment. "Let us have a look at him."

Hand-shakings and head-pattings followed as Keith was presented to
"Uncle" This and "Uncle" That. He didn't object and he didn't care. They
looked nice enough, and their talk was friendly, but somehow he felt
that his parents did not care for them. Some of the glamour had left the
place. In spite of its magnificence, he did not like it, although he was
glad to have seen it.

Discovering a wastepaper basket full of envelopes with brightly coloured
marks on them, he regained his interest a little. He knew those marks
for stamps and they had pictures on them which attracted him very much.
So he made a bee-line for the basket and proceeded to pic