diff --git a/src/allmydata/util/base62.py b/src/allmydata/util/base62.py
index 829bca982..38370ea5a 100644
--- a/src/allmydata/util/base62.py
+++ b/src/allmydata/util/base62.py
@@ -13,14 +13,14 @@ chars = b"0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
 
 BASE62CHAR = b'[' + chars + b']'
 
+def byteschr(x):
+    return bytes([x])
+
 vals = b''.join([byteschr(i) for i in range(62)])
 c2vtranstable = maketrans(chars, vals)
 v2ctranstable = maketrans(vals, chars)
 identitytranstable = maketrans(chars, chars)
 
-def byteschr(x):
-    return bytes([x])
-
 def b2a(os):
     """
     @param os the data to be encoded (as bytes)