labels had been
pasted on my hat-box that I saw them as souvenirs, and determined that
in future my hat-box should always travel with me and so commemorate my
every darling escape.

In the path of every collector are strewn obstacles of one kind or
another; which, to overleap, is part of the fun. As a collector of
labels I had my pleasant difficulties. On any much-belabelled piece of
baggage the porter always pastes the new label over that which looks
most recent; else the thing might miss its destination. Now, paste
dries before the end of the briefest journey; and one of my canons was
that, though two labels might overlap, none must efface the inscription
of another. On the other hand, I did not wish to lose my hat-box, for
this would have entailed inquiries, and descriptions, and telegraphing
up the line, and all manner of agitation. What, then, was I to do? I
might have taken my hat-box with me in the carriage? That, indeed, is
what I always did. But, unless a thing is to go in the van, it receives
no label at all. So I had to use a mild stratagem. 'Yes,' I would say,
'everything in the van!' The labels would be duly affixed. 'Oh,' I
would cry, seizing the hat-box quickly, 'I forgot. I want this with me
in the carriage.' (I learned to seize it quickly, because some porters
are such martinets that they will whisk the label off and confiscate
it.) Then, when the man was not looking, I would remove the label from
the place he had chosen for it and press it on some unoccupied part of
the surface. You cannot think how much I enjoyed these manoeuvres.
There was the moral pleasure of having both outwitted a railway company
and secured another specimen for my collection; and there was the
physical pleasure of making a limp slip of paper stick to a hard
substance--that simple pleasure which appeals to all of us and is,
perhaps, the missing explanation of philately. Pressed for time, I
could not, of course, have played my trick. Nor could I have done
so--it would have seemed heartless--if any one had come to see me off
and be agitated at parting. Therefore, I was always very careful to
arrive in good time for my train, and to insist that all farewells
should be made on my own doorstep.

Only in one case did I break the rule that no label must be obliterated
by another. It is a long story; but I propose to tell it. You must know
that I loved my labels not only for the meanings they conveyed to me,
but also, more than a littl