ch used, in the olden time, to be deemed the
extreme limit of "haste, haste, post haste." The yard began to empty
when eight o'clock struck. A few seconds later the last of the scarlet
vans drove off; and about forty tons of letters, etcetera, were flying
from the great centre to the circumference of the kingdom.

Phil still sat pressing the aching fingers to the aching head and eyes,
when he was roused by a touch on the shoulder. It was Peter Pax, who
had also, by that time, worked his way upwards in the service.

"Tired, Phil?" asked Pax.

"A little, but it soon passes off," said Phil lightly, as he rose.
"There's no breathing-time, you see, towards the close, and it's the
pace that kills in everything."

"Are you going to Pegaway Hall to-night?" asked Pax, "because, if so,
I'll go with you, bein', so to speak, in a stoodious humour myself."

"No, I'm not going to study to-night,--don't feel up to it. Besides, I
want to visit Mr Blurt. The book he lent me on Astronomy ought to be
returned, and I want to borrow another.--Come, you'll go with me."

After exchanging some books at the library in the basement, which the
man in grey had styled a "magnificent institootion," the two friends
left the Post-Office together.

"Old Mr Blurt is fond of you, Pax."

"That shows him to be a man of good taste," said Pax, "and his lending
you and me as many books as we want proves him a man of good sense. Do
you know, Phil, it has sometimes struck me that, what between our
Post-Office library and the liberality of Mr Blurt and a few other
friends, you and I are rather lucky dogs in the way of literature."

"We are," assented Phil.

"And ought, somehow, to rise to somethin', some time or other," said
Pax.

"We ought--and will," replied the other, with a laugh.

"But do you know," continued Pax, with a sigh, "I've at last given up
all intention of aiming at the Postmaster-Generalship."

"Indeed, Pax!"

"Yes. It wouldn't suit me at all. You see I was born and bred in the
country, and can't stand a city life. No; my soul--small though it be--
is too large for London. The metropolis can't hold me, Phil. If I were
condemned to live in London all my life, my spirit would infallibly
bu'st its shell an' blow the bricks and mortar around me to atoms."

"That's strange now; it seems to me, Pax, that London is country and
town in one. Just look at the Parks."

"Pooh! flat as a pancake. No ups and downs, no streams, n