"Yes, I was a stranger, who merely passed two or three times through your village, stopping on business. My usual address is New York. That coachman was hired at the next village to drive me about the country a few days. I have nearly forgotten him. I would like to call him to an account for some of his conduct which was not satisfactory. Can you describe his personal appearance?--though, I suppose, you could not have taken any particular notice of him." "It was evening on both occasions of his calling. He was muffled up about the lower part of the face, and his cap pulled down. I couldn't tell you a thing about him, indeed, except that he had black eyes. If I'm not mistaken, he had black or dark eyes. I think I remember of their looking at me very sharp through the window here. But it was evening, and I shouldn't mind the circumstance at all if I had not wondered, at the time, who John Owen was. It's likely the fellow was a rogue--he looked kind of slippery." I, listening apart to the conversation, longed to ask if this muffled driver was small and slender, for I was thinking of a woman. While I was studying how to propose the question to Mr. Burton, he continued, "A smallish fellow, if I remember rightly? I really wish I had his name." "Can't say any thing more about it," was the reply of the postmaster. "I couldn't answer if he were large or small, white or black, except as to his eyes, which were about all I saw of him. If you want to find out about him, why don't you go to the livery-keeper who furnished your team to you? Of course, his employer could tell you all you want to know." "That _would_ be the most sensible course," answered the detective, with a laugh. "But, my good friend, it is considerably out of my way to go to S--; and I must leave on the train up, in half an hour. After all, the matter is not of so much importance. I had a curiosity to learn what had kept the letter so long on its travels. Good-day, sir." It never entered the official's thoughts to inquire how we came in possession of a document which had not been returned from the Dead-Letter Department--at least, not while we remained with him--though he may afterward have puzzled his brains over the affair. As we did not wish to arrive in Blankville until after dark, we had to leave the cars once again, and to get off at a little intermediate station, with half a dozen houses clustered about it; and here we whiled away, as we best could, several tedious hours, whose dreariness was only partially soothed by the influences of such a supper as could be obtained in the small public-house attached to the depot.