Before it came my turn to speak, Mrs. M. On The L. gave me a scrutinizing look--a censorious look--a look that said, “I know where you have been,” and took the floor. She did not rise in taking it either.
“Oh, he can get the stamps. Take that change and these letters. You can go to some other drug store and get the stamps. Put ten cents in stamps in each envelope and then seal and mail the letters.”
I should be ashamed to admit it, but I am not. There are limits to the endurance of even such a temperate-zone nature as that of the writer. The boss’ speech reached the limit. My patriotism was set all awry. Even my earnest desire to reduce the “deficit” in the postal service was, for the moment, forgotten--was submerged.
I took the 84 cents those friendly ladies had pooled on “biscuits” and the seven unsealed letters, assuring them I would certainly find the stamps. I then went up to my den, unlocked a drawer of my desk, found the stamps, made the enclosures, stamped and sealed the envelopes, and then came down and passed out on my assigned errand. I got back just as the “party” was donning its hat to depart for its several homes, assured it that its orders had been carried out, and, by direction of the boss, escorted home one of its members who had some distance to walk.
Now, I think I did my whole duty to that tea-party, and _more_ than my duty to reduce the postal “deficit.”
I trust the “dear reader” will not have concluded or even thought that I am trying to be funny or humorous, nor even ludicrous. I have been writing of _actual_ occurrences, and writing the _facts_, too, of those occurrences, as nearly as I can recall them after an interval of _less than three months_. I introduce the _de facto_ happenings at our “tea party” here because they _apply_--because they illustrate, they evidence, they _prove_ that the advertising pages of our periodicals _are the pages which produce a large part, if indeed, not the larger part of our postal service revenues_.
But we must look after our “biscuits” a little further.
The seven women at that tea party spent 84 cents for stamps to get a sample of those crackers. Fourteen cents of these stamps went to cancellation on the letters they mailed. The other 70 cents went to cancellation on the cracker packages which the cracker inventor sent them--cancelled at the fourth-class rate--_cancelled at the postal carriage rate of sixteen cents a pound_.