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.
Although, he thought, the value of it was not of so great a moment.
He probably should specialize, he thought. That was what most collectors did. The galaxy was
much too big to try to collect it all. Even back a couple of thousand years ago when all the
collectors had to worry about were the stamps of Earth, the field even then had become so large
and so unwieldy and so scattered that specialization had become the thing.
But what would a man specialize in, if he should decide to restrict his interest? Perhaps just
the stamps from one particular planet or one specific system? Perhaps only stamps from beyond a
certain distance - say, five hundred light-years? Or covers, perhaps? A collection of covers with
postmarks and cancellations showing the varying intricacies of letter communication throughout the
depths of space, from star to star, could be quite interesting.
And that was the trouble with it - it all was so interesting. A man could spend three full
lifetimes at it and still not reach the end of it,
In twenty years, he told himself, a man could amass a lot of material if he applied himself.
And he had applied himself; he had worked hard at it and enjoyed every minute of it, and had
become in certain areas, he thought with pride, somewhat of an expert. On occasion he had written
articles for the philatelic press, and scarcely a week went by that some man well-known in the
field did not drop by for a chat or to seek his aid in a knotty problem.
There was a lot of satisfaction to be found in stamps, he told himself with apologetic
smugness. Yes, sir, a great deal of satisfaction.
But the mere collection of material was only one small part of it - a sort of starting point.
Greater than all the other facets of it were the contacts that one made. For one had to make
contacts - especially out in the farther reaches of the galaxy. Unless one wanted to rely upon the
sorry performance of the rascally dealers, who offered only what was easy to obtain, one must
establish contacts. Contacts with other collectors who might be willing to trade stamps with one;
contacts with lonely men in lonely outposts far out on the rim, where the really exotic material
was most likely to turn up, and who would be willing to watch for it and save it and send it on to
one at a realistic price; with far-out institutions that made up mixtures and job lots in an
attempt to eke out a miserly budget voted by the home communities.
There was a man by the name of Marsh out in the Coonskin system who wanted no more than the
latest music tapes from Earth for the material that he sent along. And the valiant priest at the
missionary station on barren Agustron who wanted old tobacco tins and empty bottles which, for a
most peculiar reason, had high value on that topsy-turvy world. And among the many others,
Earthmen and aliens alike, there was always PugAlNash.
Packer rolled the wad of leaf across his tongue, sucking out the last faded dregs of its
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