"In this country, two things stand first in rank: your flag and your mail. You all know what honor you pay to your flag, but you should know, also, that your mail,--just that ordinary postal card--is also important. But a postal card, or any form of mail, is _not_ important, in that way, until you drop it through a slot in this building, and with a stamp on it, or into a mail box outdoors. Up to that instant it is but a common card, which anybody can pick up and carry off without committing a criminal act. But as soon as it is in back of this partition, or in a mail box, a magical transformation occurs; and anybody who _now_ should willfully purloin it, or obstruct its trip in any way, will find prison doors awaiting him. What a frail thing ordinary mail is! A baby could rip it apart, but no adult is so foolish as to do it. That small stamp which you stick on it, is, you might say, a postal official, going right along with it, having it always in his sight." A giggling girl was curious to know if that was why a man's photo is on it. "Possibly," said our official, laughing. "But wait a bit. Look downstairs. As your mail falls in through that slot, or is brought in by a mailman it is put through an ink-daubing apparatus--that's it, right down in front of you--which totally ruins its stamp. How about your man's photo, now?" A good laugh rang around, and our official said:-- "Now a man sorts it according to its inscription, puts it into a canvas bag and aboard a train, or possibly an aircraft. But that bag has mail going to points a long way apart, so a man in a mail car sorts it out, so that Chicago won't find mail in its bag which should go to California." At this point our giggling girl said:-- "Ooooo! I had a Christmas card for Missouri go way down to Mississippi!" "How did you mark it?" "I put M-i-s-s for Missouri." "Try M-o, and I wish you luck." As that laugh ran round, our official said:-- "Now you know that you can buy a long, narrow stamp which will hurry your mail along. So, as all mail in this building is put up in many a small bunch, all with such stamps attract a mailman, who will so wrap a bunch that that kind of a stamp will show up plainly. Upon its arrival at a distant point, a boy will grab it, and hurry it to its final goal. But that stamp will not hurry it as long as it is on that train." Our giggling girl, swinging in again, said:-- "What? With that stamp right on top?" "How can it?" said our official. "A train can only go just so fast, stamp or no stamp." "Oh." Our boys and girls got a big thrill from this visit in back of that partition, and told Gadsby so. On coming out of that building our party saw a big patrolman putting a small boy into a patrol wagon. That poor kid was but a bunch of rags, dirty, and in a fighting mood. Our boys got a big laugh out of it. Our girls, though, did _not_. Young Marian Hopkins, who had that fairy wand, you know, at our airport inauguration, said:--