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help as the stars up there against this tempest down below. “Look what Klamm has written!” said K. , holding the letter before his face. “He has been wrongly informed. I haven’t done any surveying at all, and you see yourself how much the assistants are worth. And obviously too I can’t interrupt work which I’ve never begun; I can’t even excite the gentleman’s displeasure, so how can I have earned his appreciation? As for being easy in my mind, I can never be that.” “I’ll see to it,” said Barnabas, who all the time had been gazing past the letter, which he could not have read in any case, for he was holding it too close to his face. “Oh,” said K. , “you promise me that you’ll see to it, but can I really believe you? I’m in need of a trustworthy messenger, now more than ever.” K. bit his lips with impatience. “Sir,” replied Barnabas with a gentle inclination of the head⁠— K. almost allowed himself to be seduced by it again into believing Barnabas⁠—“I’ll certainly see to it, and I’ll certainly see to the message you gave me last time as well.” “What!” cried K. , “haven’t you see to that yet then? Weren’t you at the Castle next day?” “No,” replied Barnabas, “my father is old, you’ve seen him yourself, and there happened to be a great deal of work just then, I had to help him, but now I’ll be going to the Castle again soon.” “But what are you thinking of, you incomprehensible fellow?” cried K. beating his brow with his fist, “don’t Klamm’s affairs come before everything else then? You’re in an important position, you’re a messenger, and yet you fail me in this wretched manner? What does your father’s work matter? Klamm is waiting for this information, and instead of breaking your neck hurrying with it to him, you prefer to clean the stable!” “My father is a cobbler,” replied Barnabas calmly, “he had orders from Brunswick, and I’m my father’s assistant.” “Cobbler-orders-Brunswick!” cried K. bitingly, as if he wanted to abolish the words forever. “And who can need boots here in these eternally empty streets? And what is all this cobbling to me? I entrusted you with a letter, not so that you might mislay it and crumple it on your bench, but that you might carry it at once to Klamm!” K. became a little more composed now as he remembered that