ome was visible above the
house-tops from the colonnade. During these fleeting moments a few
dozens of late ones posted some hundreds of letters. With kindly
consideration the authorities of St. Martin's-le-Grand have set their
timepieces one minute slow. Aware of this, a clerk, gasping and with a
pen behind his ear, leaped up the steps at the last stroke, and hurled
in a bundle of letters. Next moment, like inexorable fate, the mouth
closed, and nothing short of the demolition of the British Constitution
could have induced that mouth to convey another letter to the eight
o'clock mails.

Hope, however, was not utterly removed. Those who chose to place an
additional penny stamp on their letters could, by posting them in a
separate box, have them taken in for that mail up to seven. Twopence
secured their acceptance up to 7:15. Threepence up to 7:30, and
sixpence up to 7:45, but all letters posted after six without the late
fees were detained for the following mail.

"Sharp practice!" observed George Aspel to the red-coated official, who,
after shutting the mouth, placed a ticket above it which told all
corners that they were too late.

"Yes, sir, and pretty sharp work is needful when you consider that the
mails we've got to send out daily from this office consist of over 5800
bags, weighing forty-three tons, while the mails received number more
than 5500 bags. Speaks to a deal of correspondence that, don't it,
sir?"

"What!--every day?" exclaimed Aspel in surprise.

"Every day," replied the official, with a good-humoured smile and an
emphatic nod. "Why, sir," he continued, in a leisurely way, "we're some
what of a literary nation, we are. How many letters, now, d'you think,
pass through the Post-Office altogether--counting England, Scotland, and
Ireland?"

"Haven't the remotest idea."

"Well, sir," continued the red-coated man, with impressive solemnity,
"we passes through our hands in one year about one thousand and
fifty-seven million odd."

"I know enough of figures," said Aspel, with a laugh, "to be aware that
I cannot realise such a number."

"Nevertheless, sir," continued the official, with a patronising air,
"you can realise something _about_ such a number. For instance, that
sum gives thirty-two letters per head to the population in the year;
and, of course, as thousands of us can't write, and thousands more don't
write, it follows that the real correspondents of the kingdom do some
pretty