ge Lippity-Libby stood in plain view, with the street full
of sunshine behind him. So Nicky-Nan contented himself with closing
the door carefully and hasping it.

"If," began Lippity-Libby, "you go on gettin' letters at the rate o'
one a day, there's only two ways to it. Either you'll practise
yourself not to keep the King's postman waitin', or you'll make it up
afterwards in the shape of a Christmas-box. . . . I ought in fairness
to tell you," Lippity-Libby added, "that there _is_ a third way--
though I hate the sight of it--and that's a letter-box with a slit in
the door. Parson Steele has one. When I asked en why, he laughed
an' talked foolish, an' said he'd put it up in self-defence. Now,
what sort o' defence can a letter-box be to any man's house?
And that was six months afore the War, too!"

"Another letter for me?" Nicky-Nan hobbled forward, blinking against
the sunlight.

"'Ho-Haitch-Hem-Hess'--that means 'On His Majesty Service';
post-mark, Troy. . . . Hullo!--anything wrong wi' the house?"

"Eh?"

"Plasterin' job?"

Nicky-Nan understood. "What's that to you?" he asked curtly.

"I don' know how it should happen," mused Lippity-Libby after a pause
of dejection; "but the gettin' of letters seems to turn folks
suspicious-like all of a sudden. You'd be surprised the number that
puts me the very question you've just asked. An' they tell me that
'tis with money the same as with letters. I read a tract one time,
about a man that found hisself rich of a sudden, and instead o'
callin' his naybours together an' sayin' 'Rejoice with me,' what d'ye
think he went an' did?"

"Look here," said Nicky-Nan, eyeing the postman firmly. "If you're
hidin' something behind this clack, I'll trouble you to out with it."

"If you don't _want_ the story, you shan't have it," said
Lippity-Libby, aggrieved. "'Tis your loss, too; for it was full of
instruction, an' had a moral at the end in different letterin'. . . .
You're upset this mornin', that's what you are: been up too early an'
workin' too hard at that plasterin' job, whatever it is." The little
man limped back into the roadway and cricked his head back for a gaze
up at the chimneys. "Nothing wrong on this side, seemin'ly. . . .
Nor, nor there wasn't any breeze o' wind in the night, not to wake
me. . . . Anyways, you're a wonderful forgivin' man, Nicholas
Nanjivell."

"Why so?"

"Why, to be up betimes an' workin' yourself cross, plasterin' at th'
old h