212 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



ton. It was the custom for some of them on Satur- 

 day to obtain mone}' orders, which one of their 

 number i^osted on the following day. One Sunday 

 Pat, with letters for the post, came to the door of 

 the old post-office. A passer-by, noticing the situa- 

 tion, courteously informed him that the post-office 

 had been removed to new premises higher up the 

 street. 'Oh!' said Pat, 'this is the place where I 

 have always posted my letters.' He then broke one 

 of the panes of glass in the window nearest the posi- 

 tion of the old letter-box, and, having dropped his 

 letters through the aperture, walked away contented. 

 Messrs. Bass and Co., to whom the premises belonged, 

 on hearing of the circumstance, good-humouredly 

 treated the matter from the diverting point of view, 

 mended the broken pane, and sent the letters to the 

 post-office. 



On another occasion an Irish labourer applied for 

 a money order to the postmaster, who relates the 

 anecdote, and who was then a young clerk. When 

 the name of the remitter was required, the applicant 

 gave his own name, which the clerk could not catch. 

 ' How do you spell it ?' he asked. The Irishman 

 replied : ' Sure ! and if a fine clerk like you can't 

 spell it, how d'ye think a poor man like me can ?' 



At the Yeovil office, when the notice about the 

 purchase of Stock by Savings Bank depositors came 

 out, an aged widow asked the postmaster for advice. 

 She wanted to buy such ' stock' — meaning, of course, 

 stock-in-trade — as, with fixtures, would set up her son 



