February 13. There is a field for the number of margin entries.
At twenty past nine I spread out the stocktaking form.
There are three heads of count.
Articles, impressions and personnel present.
At twenty to ten I opened the box.
Seven articles. Seven impressions. The three hundred and fifty-fifth day.
I entered them.
At ten I looked at how the personnel head is classified.
Last year's impressions head was a reference head.
What they were told to count is matched against nothing, the reply said.
Personnel present is not a reference head.
It is a basis of comparison.
At twenty past ten I looked for what it is compared against.
It is compared against the register of persons in post.
One person on the register.
One person in this room.
They agree.
At twenty to eleven I looked at the agreement.
In January it was two for seven days.
Entered as at the date of stocktaking, those seven days do not remain.
They agree because they do not remain.
I wrote it in the margin. It is forty-seven.
At eleven I looked at the rest of the form.
There are three lines for remarks.
Last year the one before used them all and went over into the margin.
I entered one line.
That the personnel head is new this year and this room's own counting preceded it.
At twenty past eleven I looked for a field for the number of margin entries.
There is one.
It is on the stocktaking form.
The field is called number of matters without a field of entry.
At one I read it twice.
The margin is where a thing with no field is entered.
There is a field for the number of them.
There is a field for counting the things with no field.
At twenty past one I entered the number.
Forty-seven including today's.
Thirty for the one before. Seventeen for me.
Twelve in January and five in February.
The greatest month of the one before is four.
At twenty to two I counted what has run on across the change of keeper.
The log's page count, the number of margin entries, the search value, the right-hand material's page count, the sixth field and the box's day of reckoning.
Six.
At two I counted which of them I decided to take on.
Two.
The log and the margin.
For four there was nothing to decide.
The search value carries on by its rule, the right-hand material grows of itself, the sixth field grows outside, and the day of reckoning is a date.
At ten past two I looked at whether there is any count I began myself.
There is none.
Everything counted in the forty-two days since I took the post was already being counted.
Only the people did I begin to count.
And that is of the same form as the one before counting the articles and the impressions.
At twenty past two I looked for since when the margin has existed.
The first margin entry of the one before is March last year.
I looked up the field for the number of matters without a field of entry.
It was created in March last year.
At twenty to three I set the three orders side by side.
The impressions were counted from February last year and the head came in October. Eight months.
The margin was entered from March last year and the field came in March. The same month.
The people were counted on the ninth of January and the head came on the ninth of January.
At three I looked for a box to enter that in.
There is none.
I wrote it in the margin. It is forty-eight.
At ten past three I looked at whether to annex the sheets.
The stocktaking form takes only the number.
There is no field that takes the particulars.
The particulars of the forty-eight margin entries run to three annexed sheets.
There being no place for them I did not put them in.
The number goes out and the particulars stay in this room.
At twenty past three I sealed the stocktaking form.
I filled four fields.
Articles, impressions, personnel present, and the number of matters without a field of entry.
The figure in the fourth is greater than the other three.
What I entered in the fourth is forty-seven.
While I was sealing it became forty-eight.
What is counted grew while it was being counted.
At four I opened the right-hand material.
Six hundred and twenty-seven pages. The date of the page that grew is the fourteenth of March, ninety-nine.
The third line of page five hundred and thirty-nine is blank.
The forty-seventh day.
At twenty past four I looked at the sixth field.
Six thousand three hundred and ten.
At twenty to five I drew off the query record. The set's row was opened eighty-two times yesterday. The imprint route, fifty-one.
The morning's is twenty to nine today too.
At ten to five I opened the stocktaking form again.
If a sealed form is opened, the resealing is entered, it says.
Two lines of remarks were left.
In one I entered that three annexed sheets of margin particulars stay in this room.
One line I left blank.
I left it blank because I did not know what was to be entered.
I wrote the leaving blank in the margin. It is forty-nine.
At five I opened the notebook.
That line on page sixty-four is as it was.
There is no count that comes to eight today either.
At twenty past five I looked again at the interval between the counting and the field.
Eight months, and one month, and none.
It is narrowing.
Whatever I count next, there will be no interval.