As time wore on, during the ten years which followed 1854 and my father's appointment as Secretary to the Post Office, he sometimes found that his earlier estimate of former opponents was a mistake. When on the eve of entering the Post Office in 1846, he was, for instance, especially advised to get rid of Mr Bokenham, the head of the Circulation Department.[220] The new-comer, however, soon learned to appreciate at their just value Mr Bokenham's sterling qualities both in official and private life. So far from “inviting him to resign,” my father, unasked, moved for and obtained that improvement in position and salary which his ex-adversary so thoroughly well deserved, and which any less disinterested man would probably have secured for himself long before. Nor was Mr Bokenham's the only instance of genuine worth rewarded by well-merited promotion in position or salary, or both. Another former strong opponent had been Mr William Page, unto whose efforts the successful conclusion of that treaty, known as “The Postal Union,” which enables us to correspond with foreign nations for 2-1/2d. the half-ounce, was largely due. At the present day 2-1/2d. seems scarcely to deserve the term “cheap” postage, but in the middle of the nineteenth century it was a reduction to rejoice over. No visitor was more welcome to our house than Mr Page, who was one of the most genial and least self-seeking of men. He was a staunch “Maberlyite,” and, even when most friendly with us, never concealed his attachment to the man to whom he owed much kindness, as well as his own well-deserved advancement, and the appointment to the postal service of his two younger brothers. This unswerving loyalty to a former chief naturally made us hold Mr Page in still warmer esteem, since the worship of the risen sun is much more common and much less heroic than is that of the luminary which has definitely set. When my father died, Mr Page, at once and uninvited, cut short an interesting and much-needed holiday in Normandy because he knew we should all wish him to be present at the funeral. But although the situation at the Post Office greatly improved after the chief opponent's translation to another sphere of usefulness, the old hostility to the reform and reformer did not die out, being in some directions scotched merely, and not killed.