Ten Years Among the Mail Bags Part 18

The truth flashed upon the Agent's understanding. For his credit let it be declared, Carleton had played his game with a consummate art that would have deceived "the very elect."

No time was lost in obtaining traces of the young man's flight. The Agent judged rightly, from his character, that he would not attempt to leave town. He antic.i.p.ated a more melancholy fate for the unhappy youth. Some inward prompting seemed to direct him to an apothecary's shop not many doors distant, and on inquiry he learned that Carleton had just been there.

"Which way did he go?"

"In fact, I am not certain he has gone," said the druggist. "He purchased some medicines, remarking that he wished to write out some directions for its use, and stepped into the back room. I have been very busy, and he may have pa.s.sed out without my seeing him."

The Agent sprang forward. The door was locked upon the inside.

"What medicine did you sell him?" asked the Agent.

"Oh! you needn't be alarmed, he has studied medicine, and knows how to use these things."

"He knows how to use them too well! This door must be forced. His life depends upon it,--if it is not already too late!"

Too late, indeed, it was!

On breaking into the room, Carleton was found lying upon the floor, with an empty vial beside him, and an unfinished letter to his sister on the table.

In that letter he confessed his guilt, and besought his sister not only to support the mortal affliction he had brought upon her, with fort.i.tude, but also to sustain and console their mother. The young man was not yet dead. Medical a.s.sistance was speedily procured, but all efforts to save his life proved unavailing. He was already past consciousness, and never spoke again.

A veil should be drawn to exclude the scene of horror, agony, and distress that awaited his family. The brokenhearted mother survived the tragical interruption of her late happy days but a few months. And though the sister was afterwards happily married, it is said that, from the date of her brother's disgraceful end, a continual cloud of melancholy rested upon her mind during the remainder of her life. She has since pa.s.sed into that land where kindred souls are destined to meet again; and these allusions to her sad family history will give her no pain.

The secret of Carleton's lapse from virtue is soon told; and the lesson is one that every youth, who considers himself secure from temptation, should heed and carefully remember. The devil never boldly enters the citadel of rect.i.tude, at the outset. He first walks around, and pa.s.ses by; then holds a parley, and "makes the worse appear the better reason;" and ends by gaining permission to walk in just _once_, promising thenceforward to cease his solicitations, and keep aloof.

But once admitted, he goes artfully to work to destroy all our defences, and before we are aware of it, he is a permanent occupant of the castle.

Such was undoubtedly Carleton's experience. He was not a hardened sinner. He was truly a man of generous and n.o.ble impulses. But little transgressions of the stern law of conscience had in his boyhood weakened his moral force, and prepared him for more serious offences.

Then, in an unguarded hour, he formed an attachment for a fascinating, but gay and heartless woman, under whose influences his soul fell from the truth and purity of manhood. It was her hand which indirectly administered the deadly drug that destroyed his life. To meet her necessities for dress and dissipations, he resorted to the faro bank.

Although fortunate at first, he afterwards lost extensively, and became pecuniarily embarra.s.sed. He borrowed money, which he was unable to return. Only one course seemed open to him, to save his honor in the public eye. At first, he purloined cautiously and abstemiously from the mails, hoping, no doubt, that success at the faro bank would swell those unlawful gains, and cancel the necessity for further depredations.

But let us not pursue the sad topic. The end we have seen, and we will hasten to turn the last leaf of this melancholy chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

A NIGHT IN A POST-OFFICE.

Midnight Mails--Suspected Clerk--A trying Position--Limited View--A "crack" Agent--Sneezing---"Counter Irritation"--The Night Bell--Fruitless Speculations--Insect Orchestra--Picolo introduced--Snoring--Harmless Accident--The Boot-black--A tenanted Boot--The Exit.

Some years ago, the post-office of a prominent city in Western New York became involved in a series of mail depredations, and at length it was apparent that some one of three clerks who had slept in the office, must be guilty of committing them; but the fastening of the charge upon the delinquent was a thing yet to be accomplished. By various processes, the range of suspicion was narrowed down till it rested upon _one_ of the clerks, and it only remained to get the _legal_ proof of his guilt.

Packages were missed that were known to have reached the office by the midnight mails. The clerks took turns in getting up to receive these mails, each one performing his duty for a week in succession, the one who for the time attended to it, sleeping on a cot in the post-office _proper_, and the other two occupying a small apartment at some little distance from the main office, but connected with it.

It had also been ascertained that the packages were abstracted from a particular mail-pouch which arrived with many others about midnight, and remained una.s.sorted till morning. On a certain occasion, when the suspected clerk was upon duty, an exact description of everything in that pouch was taken, upon the cars from the West, with the view of comparing the list of its contents with the post bills which should be found on the files of the office the following morning, these bills having heretofore disappeared with the packages.

As I had before this had good reason to know that magistrates and jurors in that section of the country very properly required pretty conclusive evidence for conviction in such cases, I determined, in addition to other expedients, to take the post of private watchman inside the office, for one night at least, that I might obtain, by ocular demonstration, sufficient proof against the guilty one, to satisfy the most incredulous court and jury.

One of the unsuspected clerks was sent away that night, and the other, in whom I had the utmost confidence, was apprised of my intentions. By him I was let into the office through a private door, before the object of our machinations had entered; and I was not long in selecting a suitable place where I could see without being seen, behind an open door leading from the post master's private room. This position could command (through the crack of the door) a fair view of the aforesaid cot and its occupant.

It was not long before the individual arrived who was to be honored with my scrutiny during the live-long night; and as he "wrapt the drapery of his couch about him," I could not avoid making a momentary comparison between the luxury about to be enjoyed by him, and the wearisome hours upon which I was entering. Well,

"Some must watch, while some must sleep; Thus runs the world away."

Sitting in the public stocks,--watching with the body of a person who has died of some contagious disease,--being cornered by a bore, when you have an immediate engagement elsewhere,--waiting your turn in a dentist's office,--all these are somewhat trying to the nerves; but for a real test of their power of endurance, commend me to a stand behind a door, between the hours of 10 p. m. and daylight; the thermometer ranging from 80 upwards, all motion and sound being forbidden, under the imminent risk of being discovered in your hiding place, and forced to retreat ignominiously.

This is a faint picture of the situation of the author on the night in question. Zeal for the public good, and a cracker or two, alone sustained him through the tedious night watches.

The proverb says that "a great deal can be seen through a small hole."

My sphere of vision, however, was rather limited, embracing only a portion of the adjoining room, faintly lighted by a hanging lamp, the cot with its sleeping burden, a table, and the dimly seen tiers of letter boxes forming a back-ground. Entirely in keeping with this scene of "still life," was the monotonous buzz of sundry flies of a rowdyish disposition, who, not content with tickling the noses of peaceable citizens, and otherwise hara.s.sing them during the day, must needs "keep it up" through the hours devoted to repose by insects of more steady habits. However, they might have been engaged in the praiseworthy occupation of soothing one another to rest by their "drowsy hum," for I myself began to feel its soporific influence, and to bless "the man who first _in_vented sleep," but anathematize (inwardly) him who was _pre_venting it.

I was roused from this sleepy condition by a slight irritation in the Schneiderian membrane; in other words, I began to feel a desire to sneeze. Now, sneezing is an operation which admits of no compromise.

You must either "go the whole hog," or entirely refrain. Any attempt to reduce the force of the explosion is as unavailing as was the Irishman's effort to "fire aizy" when he was touching off the cannon.

So the annoying inclination must be nipped in the bud, if I wished to preserve my secrecy inviolate, and prove that I was "up to _snuff_."

Accordingly I called to mind (as far as I was able) and practised all the expedients of which I had ever heard, besides others entirely original, for allaying this t.i.tillation. I rubbed the bridge of the nose; I would have slapped myself on the forehead, had I not feared the remedy would prove worse than the disease in respect of noise. I inst.i.tuted experiments in "counter irritation," by pulling my hair, pinching my ear, and thus diverting attention from the rebellious organ; and finally I succeeded in subduing this refractory member. The uneasiness I felt lest, after all, I should be compelled to wake the echoes of the building, as well as other more tangible creations, were in some degree dispelled by several hearty snores which proceeded from the sleeper, and, like the guns which announce the arrival of a vessel in port, gave evidence that he had arrived in the land of dreams.

Under the cover of this "_feu de joie_," I dispatched a cracker (not a fire-cracker) which I happened to have in my pocket, as my inner man began to feel the effects of my unwonted position and consequent weariness.

At about midnight, a sudden peal of the bell, pulled by the mail carrier, at a back door, aroused the sleeper, who started up, went to the door and received the mail, and, after a little delay, returned to his bed, not, however, to sleep as quietly as before, as he often rolled over from side to side, occasionally uttering a groan.

Having nothing better to do, I speculated on the cause of these phenomena. They might be owing, first, to heat, second, to a disordered stomach, or third, to an uneasy conscience.

As to the first of these supposed causes, it seemed improbable that his recent visit to the door in a very airy costume, should have had any tendency to increase the animal heat; and as regarded the second theory, my knowledge of his dietetic habits was too limited to furnish me with data for anything like an argument. If his short delay at the door after receiving the mail bags, was produced by any cause for which conscience might properly goad him, the last hypothesis might be correct,--but on the whole I was obliged to follow the example of many profounder theorists, and confess that I didn't know much about the matter.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A combination of the stomach and conscience suppositions, might be an adequate solution of the question, for the slender salary of a post-office clerk hardly sufficed for more than three meals a day, and the inference from these premises would be rather easy that a fourth must have been at the public expense.

Here my reflections came to an untimely end, for the insect orchestra, of whose performances I have spoken, was reinforced by the addition of a picolo, in the shape of one of those minute specimens of creation commonly called mosquito, whose note, "most musical, most melancholy,"

blended with the trombone of the blue bottle fly in a manner rather more curious than pleasing. And the different sounds produced by these insects were no less unlike than their modes of approaching their victims; the latter, with bull-headed obstinacy, bouncing against your face in a blundering way, with apparently no particular object excepting that of making himself generally disagreeable, while the former, lighting upon you as delicately as a snow flake, proceeds with admirable prompt.i.tude and definiteness of purpose to take out his lancet, and, like some never-failing humorist, is always "in the vein."

The tones of this insect aeolian rose and fell for a little time at a distance, but I was speedily aware of its presence in immediate proximity to my ear, and apparently making a tour of observation around my head, whereupon I commenced a blind sort of defence by flouris.h.i.+ng my hands as noiselessly as possible round the region invaded, to as little purpose, however, as the attack of regular troops upon a body of Indians; for in a moment the music ceased, and I felt the sharp p.r.i.c.k which informed me that I was. .h.i.t, and I instinctively inflicted an energetic slap upon the spot, by which my enemy was extinguished, and one bill at least effectually cancelled.

This result was not attained without a report, which so violently broke the silence, that I stood for a moment in breathless suspense, fearing that the sound would penetrate into the realms of Morpheus, and that thus I might pay too dearly for my triumph. But the sleeper "made no sign," and I was again left to my solitary musings.

A small pistol which I had observed my sleeping friend place under his head, on going to bed, did not tend to increase the comforts of my position, for since he had become so restless, the thought pa.s.sed through my mind that he might have heard some suspicious noise in my direction, and was feigning sleep, while on the watch for its repet.i.tion. If this were the case, the discovery of a supernumerary on the premises, might lead to a hasty a.s.sault on the supposed midnight prowler, and also a more rapid transfer of the contents of the pistol to me than would be either agreeable or wholesome, before I could offer any reasonable explanation for my presence behind the door at such an unseasonable hour.

After a while, however, a renewal of the snoring, which was occasionally echoed by the occupant of the adjoining room, a.s.sured me of the absence of belligerent intentions, and the buzzing of the flies before mentioned, with the ticking of a clock in the office, were the only additional sounds that broke upon the silence.

About two o'clock, a slight accident occurred to me, which, however, did no harm. In reaching for a pitcher of water that stood on the table near by, I knocked off a book, which must have been poised on the corner of the table. I immediately imitated, by scratching, the gnawing of a rat in the wall, so that if the falling of the book had aroused the sleeper, he would have attributed both the noises to the imaginary animal.

But few sounds outside the building were heard, save the occasional drunken shout of some votary of Bacchus, reeling home to disgrace his family with his presence; and the measured strokes of the city clocks, as they told off the long, long hours.

But the most ludicrous circ.u.mstance happened just about daylight,--that is, daylight outside, for within the office it was still dark, as all the blinds were closed. I was startled by a sudden rap on the door of the post master's room which opened into the main hall, soon followed by another even more energetic. The clerk in the bed-room jumped from his bed and pa.s.sed by me to open the door.

Fearing that I should be discovered, I darted into the bed-room without his knowledge, and before he had returned. The truth is, he was not more than half awake, and had forgotten me entirely. He had admitted a colored man to get the boots which required his polis.h.i.+ng touch, and then returned to bed again.

This gentleman of color, who by the way proved to be a trusty porter employed in several of the offices in the building, proceeded first to the side of the cot to get the boots there, and then made for the bed-room, into which I had retreated. In feeling about the floor to find the remaining "leathern conveniences," he seized one of mine!