THE CORNISH MAIL 141 



a bag of sixty pennies, tapped gently at the window, 

 and, with poHshed courtesy, suavely asked for * A 

 penny stamp, if you please, madam.' The post- 

 mistress fixed her enemy with the glittering eye of 

 triumph, took the penny, gave the stamp, and briskly 

 shut the window. A minute later there was a second 

 knock, a second inquiry for ' A penny postage stamp, if 

 you please, madam ' ! I know not at which penny — 

 the third or the thirtieth — the citadel capitulated. But 

 in the end the Colonel ungallantly won the day, and 

 retired bearing off all the honours of war. 



If the army were victorious at Penzance, the navy, 

 on the other hand, sustained, at about the same time, 

 a serious reverse, strange to say, in Derbyshire. 



A postmistress of Buxton, in reality a woman of 

 abounding energy on occasion, as I seem personally 

 to recollect, had a constitutional dislike of hurry. 

 Once, tired of waiting for a money order which had 

 been long in course of preparation, a navy Captain 

 testily said he would call again for it in six months' 

 time. In half an hour he renewed his visit : ' Is 

 that money order ready now ?' ' What money order?' 

 inquired the lady. ' The order asked for half an hour 

 ago.' ' Oh, the six months are not yet up. It shall 

 be ready by then,' was the answer. 



In Mount's Bay, in the fifteenth century, a ship 

 came ashore laden with foreign leather. Somehow 

 or other, Simon Eyre, a shoemaker in Leadenhall 

 Street, heard of it. He scraped together every avail- 

 able penny, walked down from London to Penzance, 



