chinery for stamping
letters. But he had hardly succeeded in life. He had done his duty, and
was respected by all. He lived comfortably in a suburban cottage with a
garden, having some private means, and had brought up a happy family in
prosperity;--but he had done nothing new. Bagwax, who was twenty years
his junior, had with manifest effects, added a happy drop of turpentine
to the stamping-oil,--and in doing so had broken Curlydown's heart. The
'Bagwax Stamping Mixture' had absolutely achieved a name, which was
printed on the official list of stores. Curlydown's mind was vacillating
between the New River and a pension,--between death in the breach and
acknowledged defeat,--when a new interest was lent to his life by the
Caldigate envelope. It was he who had been first sent by the
Postmaster-General to Sir John Joram's chambers. But the matter had
become too large for himself alone, and in an ill-fated hour Bagwax had
been consulted. Now Bagwax was to be sent to Sydney,--almost with the
appointments of a lawyer!

They still occupied the same room,--a fact which infinitely increased
the torments of Curlydown's position. They ought to have been moved very
far asunder. Curlydown was still engaged in the routine ordinary work of
the day, seeing that the proper changes were made in all the stamps used
during the various hours of the day,--assuring himself that the crosses
and letters and figures upon which so much of the civilisation of Europe
depended, were properly altered and arranged. And it may well be that
his own labours were made heavier by the devotion of his colleagues to
other matters. And yet from time to time Bagwax would ask him questions,
never indeed taking his advice, but still demanding his assistance.
Curlydown was not naturally a man of ill-temper or an angry heart. But
there were moments in which he could hardly abstain from expressing
himself with animosity.

On a certain morning in August, Bagwax was seated at his table, which as
usual was laden with the envelopes of many letters. There were some
hundreds before him, the marks on which he was perusing with a strong
magnifying-glass. It had been arranged that he was to start on his great
journey in the first week in September, and he employed his time before
he went in scanning all the envelopes bearing the Sydney postmark which
he had been able to procure in England. He spent the entire day with a
magnifying-glass in his hand;--but as Curlydown was