Page:Gadsby.djvu/119

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GADSBY

was worthy. So, on a Saturday morning His Honor took a group of Grammar School pupils to a balcony in back of that all-hiding partition, and a postal official, showing all mail handling acts individually, said:—

“In this country, two things stand first in rank: your flag and your mail. You all know what honor you pay to your flag, but you should know, also, that your mail,—just that ordinary postal card—is also important. But a postal card, or any form of mail, is not important, in that way, until you drop it through a slot in this building, and with a stamp on it, or into a mail box outdoors. Up to that instant it is but a common card, which anybody can pick up and carry off without committing a criminal act. But as soon as it is in back of this partition, or in a mail box, a magical transformation occurs; and anybody who now should willfully purloin it, or obstruct its trip in any way, will find prison doors awaiting him. What a frail thing ordinary mail is! A baby could rip it apart, but no adult is so foolish as to do it. That small stamp which you stick on it, is, you might say, a postal official, going right along with it, having it always in his sight.”

A giggling girl was curious to know if that was why a man’s photo is on it.

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