[Stormmee]

of a
telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult
not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while
he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There
was no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small
and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his
pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper
folded into a square.
While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering,
to get it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written
on it. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets
and read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew.
There was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreens
were watched continuously.
He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of paper
casually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles and
hitched the speakwrite towards him. 'five minutes,' he told himself, 'five
minutes at the very least!' His heart bumped in his breast with frightening
loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine,
the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention.
Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political
meaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, much the
more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as
he had feared. He did not know why the Thought Police should choose to
deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they had their
reasons. The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a
summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But there
was another, wilder p