Note 125 — Chapter IV

Losses, for example, are often imputed to the Post Office for which it is entirely blameless. Did space allow, scores of instances might be cited. One of the most absurd was the case of a London merchant, who, in the course of very many months, wrote at intervals angry letters to the Postmaster-General asking why such or such a letter had not reached its destination. No amount of enquiries could trace the errant missives; and the luckless Department was, at corresponding intervals, denounced for its stupidity in equally angry letters to the Press. One day, while certain city improvements were being carried out, an ancient pump, near the merchant's office, which had long refused to yield any water was taken down, when its interior presented an unusual appearance. An errand-boy had, at odd times, been sent to post the Firm's letters, and had slipped them into the narrow slit where once the vanished pump-handle used to work. The introduction of street letter-boxes was then recent, and their aspect still unfamiliar. The boy had therefore taken the venerable relic for one of those novel structures, and all the missing letters lay therein.