consideration the authorities of St. Martin's-le-Grand have set their timepieces one minute slow. Aware of this, a clerk, gasping and with a pen behind his ear, leaped up the steps at the last stroke, and hurled in a bundle of letters. Next moment, like inexorable fate, the mouth closed, and nothing short of the demolition of the British Constitution could have induced that mouth to convey another letter to the eight o'clock mails. Hope, however, was not utterly removed. Those who chose to place an additional penny stamp on their letters could, by posting them in a separate box, have them taken in for that mail up to seven. Twopence secured their acceptance up to 7:15. Threepence up to 7:30, and sixpence up to 7:45, but all letters posted after six without the late fees were detained for the following mail. "Sharp practice!" observed George Aspel to the red-coated official, who, after shutting the mouth, placed a ticket above it which told all corners that they were too late. "Yes, sir, and pretty sharp work is needful when you consider that the mails we've got to send out daily from this office consist of over 5800 bags, weighing forty-three tons, while the mails received number more than 5500 bags. Speaks to a deal of correspondence that, don't it, sir?" "What!--every day?" exclaimed Aspel in surprise. "Every day," replied the official, with a good-humoured smile and an emphatic nod. "Why, sir," he continued, in a leisurely way, "we're some what of a literary nation, we are. How many letters, now, d'you think, pass through the Post-Office altogether--counting England, Scotland, and Ireland?" "Haven't the remotest idea." "Well, sir," continued the red-coated man, with impressive solemnity, "we passes through our hands in one year about one thousand and fifty-seven million odd." "I know enough of figures," said Aspel, with a laugh, "to be aware that I cannot realise such a number."