Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office DepartmentHolbrook, James
History
Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department
Holbrook, James
Postal service -- United States
On examining his records, the post master ascertained that no bill had
been received from the office where the letter was mailed
corresponding with the date of the mailing, and that consequently the
letter, so far as his records could show, had never reached his
office.
As the time of this loss happened at the period when the mail robber
was committing depredations from day to day, and as the post-bill was
missing, the Hartford post master expressed the opinion that the
letter had very probably fallen into the hands of the mail robber,
although New Haven was off the route on which the letter should go,
and the package of letters could not have got there without having
been mis-sent.
This theory was entirely unsatisfactory to the gentleman who mailed
the letter, and he left Hartford with the conviction that he would be
compelled to endure the loss of his money with such philosophy as he
could summon to his aid.
But hope soon succeeds fear, as daylight follows darkness, and before
many days the gentleman in search of his money again called at the
post-office in Hartford, that being the important port in his voyage
of discovery.
It was very evident that his mind was somewhat "exercised," and the
ominous tone in which he requested the post master to meet him
immediately, at room No. ---- at the hotel where his name was entered,
made it clear that a revelation of no slight importance was about to
be made.
The post master told him he would accompany him immediately, and
started with his eager friend for the appointed place. During their
walk nothing was said on the great subject-matter, probably because it
was deemed too solemn in its nature to be broached amid the bustle and
jar of a crowded street.
The hotel was soon reached, and the communicator of the "latest
intelligence" ascended the stairs to the room where the gentleman
accompanying him would be called on to listen to the disclosures about
to be made, and take such action thereon as circumstances might seem
to require.
After pointing solemnly to a chair, declaring by such dumb show that
he desired the post master to be seated, and then taking a chair
himself and sitting thereon so as to face the person with whom he was
conversing, he deliberately asked--
"Do you believe in clairvoyance?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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