Walther shifted tensely to the edge of his chair. He spilled a little coffee in setting his cup down.
"I would like to buy copies," he said, "of everything your Digester friends have ever smuggled out of the vaults!"
"That's a large order, my young friend."
"I'll pay ... whatever it costs!"
"So would I—if I could afford it! But I fear it's not that simple. Take, for example, the chapter of Don Quixote you heard last evening. The World Government representative from England sent the Digester's notes to an aunt in Liverpool. She'll read them to her Bohemian friends tonight, and tomorrow they may be in Buenos Aires or Istanbul—who knows?"
"But what happens to them eventually? Aren't they kept in some central place?"
Willy spread his short, pudgy fingers in a gesture of hopelessness.
"That would mean organization—and we're not organized. We wouldn't dare to be! I've never stopped to think what finally happens to these things. Perhaps they end up among the papers of some old dreamer like myself. It's enough that they have brought their mellow moments of happiness!"
"It's not enough!" Walther protested fiercely. "It's a great waste! How will you ever improve things that way?"
"Who's trying to improve anything? The people of Earth are content—and those of us who are not entirely so—well, we have our little underworlds of pleasure."