At each of these sub-stations there are, in addition to the fairly obvious necessary facilities for re-sorting the merchandise, complete garage facilities for the wagons and trucks running out from them; these, of course, are in addition to the store's main stables and garages in West Nineteenth Street and also in West Thirty-eighth, Manhattan. Together all of these form a very considerable fleet upon wheels, with a personnel in keeping. For the delivery routes alone, and taking no account of the sizable force employed in the upkeep of vehicles and horses, there are employed, in the city service of the store, one hundred and ninety drivers and chauffeurs, with one hundred and eighty-six helpers, and in the suburban service, seventy-four drivers and eighty-six helpers. Through the hands of these there pours a constant and a terrific stream of merchandise. The conveying system in the basement of the Herald Square store has a generous maximum carrying capacity of five thousand packages an hour--a capacity which sometimes is actually reached toward the close of an exceptionally busy day, say toward the end of the pre-Christmas season. Twenty-five thousand packages is an average day's work for that basement room; upon occasion it has gone well over forty-one thousand. It should be borne in mind, moreover, that a package does not always represent a single purchase; in fact, it rarely does. Inside of one assembled package--generally assembled, as we saw in a previous chapter, at the store's transfer desk--there may be all the way from two to ten separate parcels. You may take your own guess as to the average number. Here, then, is the great and complicated system in its simplest form. Its ramifications are many and astonishing. For instance, milady is apt at times to change her mind. Yes, she is. And send the package back. Even though not as often in Macy's as in the charge account stores. Here is another decided benefit in the cash system--not alone to the store, but, because of its habit of passing on its economies, to its patrons as well. Yet in the course of a year a considerable number of packages must come back. Despite a thorough educational system and constant oversight and admonition there is bound to be a percentage of incorrect address slips. These and other causes produce a certain definite return flow of merchandise; which must have its own forms and safeguards, for the protection both of the store and its customer. They all make detail, but extremely necessary detail.