“Captain indeed! a nice Captain,” says Miss Crutty, snapping her fingers in my face, and walking away: “a Captain who has had his nose pulled! ha! ha!”--And how could I help it? it wasn't by my own CHOICE that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me. Didn't I show how averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge?--But such is the world. And thus the people at Stiffelkind's used to tease me, until they drove me almost mad. At last he came home one day more merry and abusive than ever. “Gaptain,” says he, “I have goot news for you--a goot place. Your lordship vill not be able to geep your garridge, but you vill be gomfortable, and serve his Majesty.” “Serve his Majesty?” says I. “Dearest Mr. Stiffelkind, have you got me a place under Government?” “Yes, and somting better still--not only a place, but a uniform: yes, Gaptain Stobbs, a RED GOAT.” “A red coat! I hope you don't think I would demean myself by entering the ranks of the army? I am a gentleman, Mr. Stiffelkind--I can never--no, I never--” “No, I know you will never--you are too great a goward--ha! ha!--though dis is a red goat, and a place where you must give some HARD KNOCKS too--ha! ha!--do you gomprehend?--and you shall be a general instead of a gaptain--ha! ha!” “A general in a red coat, Mr. Stiffelkind?” “Yes, a GENERAL BOSTMAN!--ha! ha! I have been vid your old friend, Bunting, and he has an uncle in the Post Office, and he has got you de place--eighteen shillings a veek, you rogue, and your goat. You must not oben any of de letters you know.” And so it was--I, Robert Stubbs, Esquire, became the vile thing he named--a general postman! ***** I was so disgusted with Stiffelkind's brutal jokes, which were now more brutal than ever, that when I got my place in the Post Office, I never went near the fellow again: for though he had done me a favor in keeping me from starvation, he certainly had done it in a very rude, disagreeable manner, and showed a low and mean spirit in SHOVING me into such a degraded place as that of postman. But what had I to do? I submitted to fate, and for three years or more, Robert Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, was-- I wonder nobody recognized me. I lived in daily fear the first year: but afterwards grew accustomed to my situation, as all great men will do, and wore my red coat as naturally as if I had been sent into the world only for the purpose of being a letter-carrier. I was first in the Whitechapel district, where I stayed for nearly three years, when I was transferred to Jermyn Street and Duke Street--famous places for lodgings. I suppose I left a hundred letters at a house in the latter street, where lived some people who must have recognized me had they but once chanced to look at me.