at a wondrous city is

you wish for pleasures that are new, ed or bothered, which a pity is, nd at once for the novel by Bellew.

talent does not lack at will,

I give us something very new;

im the firm of Hurst & Blackett will, hope, a fortune of this novel by Bellew.

the title at the termini;

e name-it's the proper thing to do; ellow, who can preach a clever sermon, I e the hero of this novel by Bellew.

-p'raps, the scene at the diggins is; in India, across the ocean blue; entleman whose real name Higgins is* ng out with a novel by Bellew.

geon, on, poke him up and urge him on; y man this Higgins to outdo.

let himself be beaten by a clergyman, excel this novel by Bellew!"

B.'s original name was Higgins.

CHAPTER XIII.

LATER DAYS IN THE POST-OFFICE.

WITH the occasional break afforded by the special trips recorded in an earlier chapter, and by the annually recurring month's holiday, which was generally spent with my family at some quiet sea-side place, my official life went on in tolerably regular course.

per

It was supposed by my literary friends to be a monotonous life; and I was often greatly compassionated, principally by those who lounged through their existence, and were vastly indignant if the ravens, or their equivalent, did not cater for them lavishly. I do not think that the monotony preyed very much upon me; I always found plenty of amusement in my morning omnibus rides, in which, despite Sir Roland Hill's kindly admonition. I severed till the last. I liked the pleasant conference with friends at luncheon-time; and, though the work itself— the superintendence of the post-office buildings in large towns and the provision of proper postal accommodation for the public throughout the provinces-was not particularly inthralling, a student of character could find plenty of opportunity in the correspondence with the local magnates, and the observation of the discomfiture of the Parliamentary representatives under pressure by their constituents.

I do not know that I myself should have enjoyed it so much as I did, had not that good-fortune, which has stood me in such wondrous stead during my life, decreed that the one position to which I should most eagerly have aspired, and which more than any other in the service I could satisfactorily have filled, should fall vacant just at the time when I was ripe for promotion, and that I should have been appointed to it. This was the head of the

Missing Letter Branch of the Secretary's office, and the performance of its duties not merely gave one the chance of showing individual capacity, but of escaping from the ordinary routine.

The Missing Letter Branch was a specialty; it undertook to investigate all complaints and applications from the public regarding letters which had not reached their destination; and as fraud as well as accident was a large factor in these irregularities, I was constantly engaged in following up the mysterious ramifications of romances of real life, with all the looked-for adjuncts of traps, detectives, private examinations, etc. All cases of theft, or that bore any suspicious appearance, were brought under my cognizance, and duly submitted by me to Mr. William Peacock, the Assistant Solicitor, who is still living, though he has long since retired, whose name was thoroughly well known to the public, and whose genial appearance must still be fresh in the memory of a large number of the Bar.

In addition to a large staff of clerks I had the assistance of four "travelling officers," who were constantly employed in confidential investigations in the country, and four firstclass detectives of the A division from Scotland Yard, two of whom would be attached to such of the travelling officers as wanted extra help, while the other two were on duty in a glass case fitted up in the hall of the General Post-office, into which a speaking-tube, hanging close by my chair, communicated.

We had a funny story in connection with that speakingtube. One day a gentleman, who was at that time a large employer of literary labor, called on me at my office to discuss some matter in which we were mutually interested. It struck me that he had been lunching, and lunching off

or rather on—whiskey, and his manner was particularly short and disagreeable. He had finished his business, and was standing opposite me, when the mouths of the two speaking-tubes, hanging by the arms of my chair, attracted his attention. "What are those things?" he asked. "Speaking-tubes." "Where do they go to?" "This one to the messengers' lobby, this to the constables' box

in the hall below." "Ah, pshaw, with your constables !" cried my friend; "do you mean to tell me there's constables there ready to come at your call? Pooh, nonsense! you're always full of your swagger!" And, muttering other unpleasant remarks indicative of his incredulity, the great man left the room.

As the door shut behind him, I thought I would give him a well-deserved lesson, and I blew down the pipe. "Yes, sir," was the reply. "Are you both there ?" "Yes, sir." "Stop a stout man in a white waistcoat, who is coming down the staircase; take him into the Secretary's lobby, and secure him till I come." "All right, sir!" I turned to my work, and two minutes afterwards had a message from the hall-keeper that "they had got the man." Then I went leisurely through the passages and down the grand staircase, at the bottom of which I found my employer, the descendant of the Curlls and the Lintotts, with a plain-clothes constable on either side of him, holding tightly on to his waist.

"Here's the man, sir !" said the senior of the two officers; "he says it's a mistake; but they always say that, sir, as you know very well." "Mistake!" roared the Fleet Street bibliopole; "what the et cetera is the meaning of all this?" "Only to let you know in future that I don't swagger in the way you seemed to suppose. You can let him go, men !"

The ordinary method of detecting an official who had fallen into dishonest ways was by making up a "test" letter, which would fall into his hands and be dealt with by him in the course of his regular duty. In this letter was an enclosure, a coin, or a packet of stamps, which had been previously marked by the testing officer, and could be sworn to in a court of justice. If the letter did not come to hand at the proper time, the suspected man was at once seized and searched, and, in most cases, the contents found upon him.

It was the theory of those versed in such matters that a man had generally availed himself of a good many chances of theft before the suspicions of the authorities were directed towards him; so that the testing officer

had to deal with no innocent lamb, but with a sheep possessing a considerable amount of blackness-part natural, part acquired-and for whom the net must consequently be spread in an artistic manner. A good deal of ingenuity had to be exercised in the writing of the letters in which the marked bait was enclosed, as the least suspicion of their genuineness would have induced the thieves to destroy them, and to do away with their contents. Hence the great object was to make the letters read as natural as possible.

I recollect one which amused me very much at the time. It was addressed to some non-existent person in New Zealand, and was written as though by a brother. It went at some length into family details, all very cleverly and graphically narrated the death of "dear old grandfather" was touched on with much pathos. It then proceeded, "You will recollect the George II. sixpence which used to hang on his watch-chain, and which we used to play with when children, sitting on his knee? The poor old man perfectly remembered how pleased you used to be with it, and desired it might be forwarded to you, after his death, as a memento. So I enclose it." I am sorry to say the coin proved an efficient bait: the thief took the letter, and we found dear old grandfather's George II. sixpence in his pocket.

I have often thought since that our proceedings in these matters were wholly unconstitutional and highly reprehensible, though they had the effect of bringing affairs to a head very quickly. After the culprit had been arrested. and searched he was hauled off to the Solicitor's office, and there, in the presence of a certain select few, examined by Mr. William Peacock, who acted as a kind of French juge d'instruction, administered the most terrifically searching queries, and probed the man to his very

marrow.

Our worthy Solicitor had formed his manner on that of certain of the most notable Old Bailey practitioners of the day, and relied greatly on his powers of easy badinage and smart retort. One day I recollect his being completely "stumped" by a man just brought before him. "Well,