k on undisturbed.

Up to six o'clock letters are received in the letter-box at St.
Martin's-le-Grand for the mails which leave London at eight each
evening. The place for receiving book-parcels and newspapers, however,
closes half-an-hour sooner. Before five a brass slit in the wall
suffices for the public, but within a few minutes of the half-hour the
steady run of men and boys towards it is so great that the slit becomes
inadequate. A trap-door is therefore opened in the pavement, and a
yawning abyss displayed which communicates by an inclined plane with the
newspaper regions below. Into this abyss everything is hurled.

When Aspel took up his position people were hurrying towards the hole,
some with single book-parcels, or a few newspapers, others with armfuls,
and many with sackfuls. In a few minutes the rapid walk became a run.
Men, boys, and girls sprang up the steps--occasionally tumbled up,--
jostled each other in their eager haste, and tossed, dropped, hurled, or
poured their contributions into the receptacle, which was at last fed so
hastily that it choked once or twice, and a policeman, assisted by an
official, stuffed the literary matter down its throat--with difficulty,
however, owing to the ever-increasing stream of contributors to the
feast. The trap-door, when open, formed a barrier to the hole, which
prevented the too eager public from being posted headlong with their
papers. One youth staggered up the steps under a sack so large that he
could scarcely lift it over the edge of the barrier without the
policeman's aid. Him Aspel questioned, as he was leaving with the empty
sack, and found that he was the porter of one of the large publishing
firms of the city.

Others he found came from advertising agents with sacks of circulars,
etcetera.

Soon the minutes were reduced to seconds, and the work became
proportionally fast and furious; sacks, baskets, hampers, trays of
material were emptied violently into that insatiable maw, and in some
cases the sacks went in along with their contents. But owners' names
being on these, they were recoverable elsewhere.

Suddenly, yet slowly, the opening closed. The monster was satisfied for
that time; it would not swallow another morsel, and one or two
unfortunates who came late with large bags of newspapers and circulars
had to resort to the comparatively slow process of cramming their
contents through the narrow slit above, with the comforting certainty
t