"I stopped on my way here to-night and laid in a supply of something that I don't often use--chewing gum," said Bill Quinn, formerly of the Secret Service, as he settled back comfortably to enjoy an evening's chat. "There are some professional reformers who maintain that the great American habit of silently working the jaws over a wad of chewing gum is harmful in the extreme, but if you'll look into the matter you'll find that agitators of that type want you to cut out all habits except those which they are addicted to. "Personally, I'm not a habitual worshiper at the shrine of the great god Goom, but there's no use denying the fact that it does soothe one's nerves occasionally. Incidentally, it has other uses--as Elmer Allison discovered not very long ago." "Yes?" I inquired, sensing the fact that Quinn had a story up his sleeve and was only awaiting the opportunity to spring it. "Didn't you mention a post-office case in which a wad of gum played a prominent role?" "That's the one," said the former government operative, easing his wounded leg into a less cramped position. "Here, have a couple of sticks just to get the proper atmosphere and I'll see if I can recall the details." * * * * * For some reason that's hard to define [Quinn went on, after he had peeled two of the dun-colored sticks and commenced work on them] crooks in general and amateur crooks in particular seem to regard the United States mails as particularly easy prey. Possibly they figure that, as millions of dollars are handled by the Post-office Department every year, a little here and there won't be missed. But if they knew the high percentage of mail robberies that are solved they wouldn't be so keen to tackle the game. Lifting valuables, once they have passed into the hands of Uncle Sam's postman, is a comparatively easy crime to commit. There are dozens of ways of doing it--methods which range all the way from fishing letters out of a post-box with a piece of string and a hairpin, to holding up the mail car in a deserted portion of a railroad track. But getting away with it is, as our Yiddish friends say, something else again. The annals of the Postal Inspection Service are filled with incidents which indicate that the High Cost of Living is down around zero compared to the High Cost of Crime, when said crime is aimed at the mails. There are scores of men in Atlanta, Leavenworth, and other Federal prisons whose advice would be to try murder, forgery, or arson rather than attempt to earn a dishonest living by stealing valuable letters.