e it clear--
supposing you to have a mechanical turn of mind. Suffice it to say that
the Wheatstone telegraph instrument tapes off its messages at the rate
of 100 words a minute.

But to return--

With a sigh May Maylands cast her eyes on the uppermost telegram. It
ran thus:--

"Buy the horse at any price. He's a spanker. Let the pigs go for what
they'll fetch."

This was enough. Romance, domesticity, and home disappeared, probably
with the message along the wire, and the spirit of business descended on
the little woman as she applied herself once more to the matter-of-fact
manipulation of the keys.

That evening as May left the Post-Office and turned sharply into the
dark street she came into collision with a letter-carrier.

"Oh! Miss," he exclaimed with polite anxiety, "I beg your pardon. The
sleet drivin' in my face prevented my seeing you. You're not hurt I
hope."

"No, Mr Flint, you haven't hurt me," said May, laughing, as she
recognised the voice of her own landlord.

"Why, it's you, Miss May! Now isn't that good luck, my turnin' up just
in the nick o' time to see you home? Here, catch hold of my arm. The
wind's fit to tear the lamp-posts up by the roots."

"But this is not the way home," objected the girl.

"That's true, Miss May, it ain't, but I'm only goin' round a bit by St.
Paul's Churchyard. There's a shop there where they sell the sausages my
old 'ooman's so fond of. It don't add more than a few yards to the road
home."

The old 'ooman to whom Solomon Flint referred was his grandmother.
Flint himself had spent the greater part of his life in the service of
the Post-Office, and was now a widower, well stricken in years. His
grandmother was one of those almost indestructible specimens of humanity
who live on until the visage becomes deeply corrugated, contemporaries
have become extinct, and age has become a matter of uncertainty. Flint
had always been a good grandson, but when his wife died the love he had
borne to her seemed to have been transferred with additional vehemence
to the "old 'ooman."

"There's a present for you, old 'ooman," said Flint, placing the paper
of sausages on the table on entering his humble abode, and proceeding to
divest himself of his waterproof cape; "just let me catch hold of a
fryin'-pan and I'll give you to understand what a blow-out means."

"You're a good laddie, Sol," said the old woman, rousing herself and
speaking in a voice that sounded as