Page 22 - Nutshell 2

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”It seems to me,” said S, who always saw both sides of a question,
“that we are suffering from overwork. We spend our days and nights
shuffling back and forth from word to word, with never a moment’s rest.
We shouldn’t be mad at each other—we all exist under the same
conditions.”
The other letters considered this, and most of them had to admit that
S was right. If their nerves were on edge, if they felt tired and cranky, if
their jobs had become boring and painful—well, it wasn’t their fault!

That sent a lot of the letters back to grumbling about their own personal
problems—but not all of them. E, who took part in more words than
anyone else, spoke up loudly.
“Listen to me! There’s no point in complaining about our lot in life.
We’re letters of the alphabet, remember? The twenty-six of us are very
important. Nothing gets said or written without us, right?”
“Yes, that’s right!” shouted X, U, F, R, G, B, and a few others. “On
the other hand,” continued E, “it looks like making words is the only
thing we can do.”