To convey these from the chief office 176 extra vans were used, and 75 extra carts. As nearly as could be estimated, the number of extra letters and packets was not less than four millions. There was a vast increase, also, in the registered correspondence--to the extent of thirty-one thousand in excess of the ordinary numbers. During these three days some of the men did nearly thirty hours' extra duty, _besides_ performing their ordinary work. The continuous attendance at the office of some of them varied from forty to forty-eight hours, and the total increase to the revenue on that auspicious but trying occasion was estimated to be about twenty thousand pounds sterling! Phil Maylands and Peter Pax were among those who had volunteered to remain after the press of work was over; and it was not till the afternoon of Christmas-day that they finally, and simultaneously, plunged into their beds and oblivion. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. THE STORMING OF ROCKY COTTAGE AND OTHER MATTERS. Years flew by. The daily routine at St. Martin's-le-Grand went on; the mails departed and came in with unvarying regularity; in the working of the vast machine good men and boys rose to the surface, and bad ones went down. Among the former were Phil Maylands and Peter Pax. The latter, in course of time, rose to the rank of Inspector, in which condition he gradually developed a pretty pair of brown whiskers and a wonderful capacity for the performance of duty. He also rose to the altitude of five feet six inches, at which point he stuck fast, and continued the process of increase laterally. Pax, however, could not become reconciled to city life. He did his work cheerfully and with all his might, because it was his nature so to do, but he buoyed up his spirits--so he was wont to say--by fixing his eye on the Postmaster-Generalship and a suburban villa on the Thames. His friend Phil, on the contrary, was quite pleased with city life, and devoted himself with such untiring energy to his work, and to his own education, that he came ere long to be noted as the youth who knew everything. Faults he had, undoubtedly, and his firm, severe way of expressing his opinions raised him a few enemies in the Post-Office, but he attained at last to the condition of being so useful and so trustworthy as to make men feel that he was almost indispensable. They felt as if they could not get on without him. When man or boy comes to this point, success is inevitable. Phil soon became a favourite with the heads of departments. The Chief of the Post-Office himself at last came to hear of him, and, finding that he was more than capable of passing the requisite examinations, he raised him from the ranks and made him a clerk in the Savings-Bank Department.