I deemed it important not to be seen by him until I had entered the store, when it would be too late to destroy or secrete anything that he might have taken from the mail the night previous. In this I was successful. When I opened the store door, he was stooping down near the stove, engaged in preparing "kindlings" for making his fire. I came upon him so suddenly that he started to his feet almost with a spring, and looked rather more flurried than one would naturally be who expected to see no more formidable a personage than some early customer for a codfish or a quart of molasses. "Thus Conscience does make cowards of us all," thought I, as I observed his futile attempts to recover his self-possession. After returning my salutation, he resumed the occupation which I had interrupted, that of splitting up a knotty piece of pine; but in his embarrassment he endeavored in vain to strike twice in the same place, hitting the floor quite as often as the stick which he was attempting to dismember. Several common-place questions and answers passed between us while he was thus engaged. With the view of giving a temporary relief to his nerves, and of ascertaining what part of the store was appropriated to the post-office, (for there was nothing of the kind in sight,) I inquired,-- "Is there a letter here for Albert G. Foster, Jr.?" "No, there is no letter in the office for any one of that name," replied he, apparently much relieved by the inquiry. "You must have a paper for me," said I, "will you look?" He dropped his hatchet, and I followed him into a counting-room at the further end of the store, which was devoted to the postal department. The transient newspapers were examined, but not a paper could be found for Albert G. or any other Foster. By this time the gentleman had nearly recovered from the effects of my first sudden appearance, but the calm was destined to be only of short duration. "Mr. Willis, you have been talking to an Agent of the Post-Office Department, who has been sent on here for the purpose of detecting you in your frequent depredations upon the mails passing through your office, particularly the letters of Messrs. A. & Co. And last night you repeated the experiment once too often. Now I want the letter that you then robbed, and the hundred dollars which you found in it. It is a shameful thing for any one, much more for a man of your standing and connections, to convert, as you have done, a position of public trust and responsibility into a sort of place of ambush, where you lie in wait for the letters of your unsuspecting neighbors, and other members of the community, and thus abuse the confidence reposed in you. It is worse than highway robbery."