"I suppose his _style_ does not take amongst the Independent congregations wanting pastors, so he is sent back to business (a great mistake, I told him, he ever left it). "He says something about being over twenty-four years of age; but I think it hard he should go to college for three years, and then be sent adrift without a plank. Is it possible to reinstate him at the Post-office? He goes to chapel in my parish, and his family are all deserving and needy. Excuse this effort to help a respectable though needy fellow." CHAPTER XX. SINGULAR COINCIDENCES. Extraordinary coincidences have been chronicled in connection with almost every situation in life, some fortunate and attended with profit to those involved, others unfortunate or disastrous; and the Post-office is no exception to the rule as being a field for the observation of such occurrences. The peculiar nature of the coincidences to be observed in the following examples may be worthy of note, or at any rate the cases may repay their perusal with some small degree of interest:-- "Among the workmen employed in some alterations at a nobleman's country seat were two bearing exactly the same Christian name and surname, but unconnected and unacquainted with each other, one being a joiner, the other a mason. The joiner, who was a depositor in the Post-office Savings' Bank, having received no acknowledgment of a deposit of £3, obtained a duplicate. The mason, who was not a depositor, became insane and was removed to a lunatic asylum about the same time; and the original acknowledgment, intended for the joiner, having fallen into the hands of the mason's mother, she concluded that the account was his, and made a claim for the money towards defraying the expenses of his maintenance, and was with difficulty undeceived."