--Address, Box No.
77, Post-office."
"I'm their man!" said Charlie to himself, as he finished perusing it--"I'm
just the person. I'll go home and write to them immediately;" and
accordingly he hastened back to the house, sat down, and wrote a reply to
the advertisement. He then privately showed it to Esther, who praised the
writing and composition, and pronounced the whole very neatly done.
Charlie then walked down to the post-office to deposit his precious reply;
and after dropping it into the brass mouth of the mail-box, he gazed in
after it, and saw it glide slowly down into the abyss below.
How many more had stopped that day to add their contributions to the mass
which Charlie's letter now joined? Merchants on the brink of ruin had
deposited missives whose answer would make or break them; others had
dropped upon the swelling heap tidings that would make poor men rich--rich
men richer; maidens came with delicately written notes, perfumed and
gilt-edged, eloquent with love--and cast them amidst invoices and bills of
lading. Letters of condolence and notes of congratulation jostled each
other as they slid down the brass throat; widowed mothers' tender epistles
to wandering sons; the letters of fond wives to absent husbands; erring
daughters' last appeals to outraged parents; offers of marriage;
invitations to funerals; hope and despair; joy and sorrow; misfortune and
success--had glided in one almost unbroken stream down that ever-distended
and insatiable brass throat.
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