If you have wax, then you can stamp it shut with your own seal. Runnicles melted a stick of dark-red sealing wax right there in the classroom, turning the air bitter, letting the slippery melt of it drip across the fold. While the wax was still warm he took from his pocket a small brass stamp and pressed, and in an instant the wax had dried, and there in the centre was an encircled R. We all strained to see over our desks. ‘Sir,’ Ned Walpole called. And Runnicles, instead of reprimanding him, passed it along his row. Ever since that day I’ve wanted to make a seal of my own. I’ll have it in gold, T for Thomas, and that night when I take the candle to my room I gutter wax on to the window ledge and press my thumb against it, but it must be a different kind of wax because it squelches and then cracks. Betty’s picture is finished, and for all that I inspect it by daylight, and by firelight and even by the light of the candle as I carry it to my room, there’s nothing more I can think of to do.
