at Postal Cards and
Letters have any feelings. But wait. Perhaps one of our race is waiting
at this very moment to undeceive you. After the right one comes along
and tells you his message, you will know thenceforward that we are quite
alive, and have great power over the affections.

Post-office clerks have no sentiment. All along the way they handled us
as rudely as if we had been mere blank pieces of pasteboard. One or two
of them coolly stared at me till I was very red in the face, and then
turned me over and stared again, until I felt as if I were getting read
in my back. I am told that such rudeness is not uncommon. As if this
were not enough, the fellow then laid me upon my back, and picking up a
heavy instrument, struck me a violent blow in the face. It was as if I
had been stamped upon, and I carry the marks of it to this day. Why he
did it, I do not know, unless it was because I was a foreigner.

The gentleman for whom I was travelling was a student, and I was
carrying a glad message to an old chum of his in Massachusetts. I lived
with this student some weeks before he sent me on my errand. As I lay in
a pigeon-hole of his desk, I often saw him get out his books and study.
He sometimes read them aloud. He liked Horace best of all. He would
light a cigar, put his feet on the desk, and read Satires as if he were
very happy indeed. I soon became fond of Horace too. I liked to listen
to his queer stories of life in Rome, of his love of country life, and
of his dear friends Virgil and Maecenas.

My favorite story was the "Trip on a Canal-Boat." I used to picture to
myself the jolly poet sitting by the prow of the quaint boat, watching
the twinkling lights alongshore; and listening to the loud songs and
rude jests of the barge-men. So when I learned that I was to be sent on
a long journey, you may believe it was no small comfort to me to learn
that I was to go "_via_ Brindisi." I was to visit the very town to which
the poet had travelled so long ago. Perhaps between here and Rome I
might even catch a glimpse of the old canal. Fortunately there was a
little crack in the side of the bag where I lay, and I managed to get a
peep of the town. I could not see anything which satisfied me much.
Brindisi is not what Brundusium was. When Virgil died there, when Caesar
marched against it with golden eagles, when Antony threatened there the
man who afterward became Augustus, it was a great city. It had an
excellent harbor, str