He was quite an active, prominent politician, and when a new nomination for Congress was to be made, he thought he saw his way clear. He struggled hard for the selection of a personal friend, and succeeded, not only in the nomination, but in the election. But when the pinch came, the Honorable member failed him, and could not be persuaded to take the responsibility, for the new post-office had proved really a great convenience to many of his constituents and to some of his friends, personal and political. With the advantage of this information obtained from the ex-post master and one or two other citizens of that vicinity, I proceeded to visit the office which at one gulp had swallowed up the other, without apparent injury to its digestive organs. The post master was absent, and the office in charge of his wife. This was a piece of good luck, for it would enable me to examine the books and papers to greater advantage, and what was better, to interrogate the lady and her lesser half separately. Two or three points were very important. Might not some wicked wag in the Department, knowing all the circumstances of the case, have prepared the letter in question, and sent it as a hoax? This could be easily settled by referring to the account of mails received, for the record in that event should show the receipt of a free letter, either direct from Washington, or from the Distribution office at New York. Then another test, was a comparison of the "order," with the hand-writing of the post master. But the most troublesome point of all to reconcile, was, how the official envelope had been obtained, for that was beyond a doubt genuine. Introducing myself to the lady assistant, who happened to be alone in the office, I remarked,-- "I am in pursuit of a letter which should have come here from New York in March last, and I wish to see if your New York packages, during that month, were all regularly received. Where do you keep your transcripts, the books, or sheets, you know, upon which you copy your post-bills?" They were taken from a desk and laid before me. Turning to the record of the month in question, not a single free letter was entered as received at that office for the last two weeks in March, from any quarter! "Who made the entries in this book?" I inquired. "My husband," was the prompt answer. Having the general style of the "order" in my mind, I glanced over a few pages of the book, and observed several peculiarities in the formation of some of the capital letters which I had noticed in the (to this time) fatherless document. It was written in bluish ink, and so were the pages of the records made at about the same time,--a trifling circumstance to be sure, but yet a link in the chain of evidence. The wafer too, used in sealing, was strikingly similar in size and shade to those contained in a large box upon the desk. The "order" was on a half sheet of letter paper of different size and stamp from the wrapper enclosing it.