He started for the paper office but decided to let the story go until morning. What the hell, he had a stock format for all such articles. The people were the same: selfless, heroic type, citizens working for the mutual good of all. Only the names were different. And yet, this Pettigill had disturbed him. Perhaps it was something he had said that Bartle could not remember.
He walked into his warm flat and extracted the pre-cooked meal from the electroven. He ate with little relish, abstractly thinking of the foolish little cog in the governmental machine he had talked with that afternoon. Or was Pettigill that foolish little cog? Bartle could not help but feel there was something deep inside him that did not show in that wizened and seemingly open little face. He thought about it the rest of the evening.
He looked at the clock on the night table—2300 hours. "Pettigill's Lullaby Hour," he thought. Bartle chuckled and switched off the bed light. He was asleep before the puffs of air had escaped from under the covers he pulled over himself.
When the phone rang at 0300, Bartle was strangely not surprised, although, consciously, he was expecting no call.
"Hello," he said sleepily.
"Bartle? This is Pettigill." The voice was Pettigill's but the nervous, timid, quality was gone. "I assume you did not hear the 2300 'cast?"
"You assume correctly, Pettigill. What d'you want?"
"Come on over to the Center; we'll split a fifth of former Section Secretary Andrews' Scotch."
"What the hell do you mean?"