THE POST OFFICE. 267 



bags to be dropped somewhere down the road, the 

 name of the place being printed on a small brass 

 label attached to the bag ; the guard below was 

 ready to take them in exchange for any he might 

 have to leave, and which he accordingly put on the 

 hook to be drawn up into the bedroom of the post- 

 office official, who was then at liberty to return to bed 

 until the arrival of the other up or down mail, as the 

 case might be, when the same process had to be 

 repeated. 



There used to be a story that some years before the 

 railways were made, and in the days when a blue 

 coat with metal buttons, buckskins, and top-boots 

 was a very common dress in the country, an old 

 man who had been a village postmaster for a good 

 many years, and who used in his absence to leave the 

 management of the office to his wife, very often in- 

 duced her to get up and deliver the bags to the mail- 

 guard. 



Probably she had only a rushlight, or small tallow 

 dip in the room, giving scarcely light enough to dis- 

 tinguish anything, and hence she made the mistake 

 of attaching the buckskins instead of the leather 

 letter-bags to the cord and handing them down to 

 the guard. It was more than his place was worth to 

 take them on and deliver them at the Post Office by 

 daylight instead of the letter-bags, so he was obliged 



