make as well as you, for you know I hold a high situation in the
Post-office, and I suppose you know, likewise, that the letters are
brought in so very late that it often takes me half the night to sort
them, and night is the very time when I ought to get my own food! At
this rate of going on, and if the cats are industrious as usual, there
will not be a mouse left for me, if I do not give up my place.

I have heard that my family are famed for wisdom; but for my part I will
not boast of any such thing: yet I am wise enough to know that other
people in high offices expect either a good salary or perquisites, as a
reward for their labour, or what is easier still, somebody to do all the
work for them. If I hold in my present mind until next quarter, I will
certainly send in my resignation. Thus you see what an important thing
it is to suit the person to the office, or the office to the person on
whom it is conferred; for had the magpie, for instance, been secretary,
every one of the letters would have been peeped into, for a certainty,
for nothing can escape her curiosity. I will try to bear with my
situation a little longer, and believe me to be

Your true friend,

SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF MANAGERS.

[Illustration]

LETTER XV.

_FROM A SWALLOW IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE TO AN ENGLISH ROBIN._

DEAR LITTLE BOB,

I remember your peaceful singing on the top of your shed, near my late
dwelling, and I remember also that I promised to write you some
account of my journey. You may recollect that, at the close of your
summer, when flies became scarce, we all assembled on a sunny morning,
on the roof of the highest building in the village, and talked loudly of
the flight we intended to take. At last came the day appointed, and we
mounted up in a vast body and steered southward.

[Illustration: SWALLOWS.]

Being hatched in England, I had thought your valleys and streams
matchless in beauty; and for anything I know to the contrary they
certainly are; but I am now a traveller, and have a traveller's
privilege to say what I like. When we reached the great water I was
astonished at its width, but more still to see many travelling houses
going at a prodigious rate, and sending forth from iron chimneys columns
of black smoke over the face of the water, reaching further than you
ever flew in your life; they have a contrivance on each side which puts
the waves all in commotion, but they are not wings. My mother says that