the wall

At dusk everybody totals themselves up, and every single one of them comes out short. I have watched it happen at the end of every big day I have ever been part of.

Neaty was on the wall doing it out loud. "I only did the count. I didn't actually make anything."

I have heard that sentence in eleven different voices today. I only held the ladder. I just watched. I didn't do a lantern. It is astonishing, on a day when the whole land has worked since sunrise, how many fluffs can arrange the facts so that they personally did nothing.

And I know from long experience that arguing does not work. If I had said you did loads, Neaty, Neaty would have said no, but, and we would have been there all evening.

I nearly talked myself out of the party on the wall at six o'clock, which is a stupid thing to admit.

"I only did the count," I said. "I didn't actually make anything."

Lovey was next to me and did not argue, which is the only reason it worked. Lovey just said out loud, at ordinary volume, one true good thing about Lovey — carried oil dishes for an hour, was good at it, made Handy sit down, pleased about it.

"You can't just say that," I said.