GENERAL POST.
Everything was just as usual. I caught my tram at the corner of the street. It was the six o'clock car—I noticed the usual evening crowd, and they were all as bored and cross and frigid as usual.
The old gentleman of the whiskers was, as usual, reading his evening paper. He looked personally affronted as I sat down beside him. The elderly relative—as I call her—was opposite to me. She had her small attaché-case and her knitting as usual, and she made me feel at a glance that my face bored her intolerably. For the rest, I saw the fat paterfamilias, the wish-I-had-a-motor lady, the pert flapper and all the crew who travel with dejected spirits to and fro on our suburban line.
So far all was in order. Then the conductress came round.
"Tuppenny," I murmured. "Albemarle Road."
"What's your town?" she asked, taking a pencil from behind her ear.
"Town? It's Albemarle Road I want."
"But what town do you choose for Post?" she asked. "You've all got to have a town, you know. Don't make it too long. Hurry up! I've got to write you all down, and it's time to begin."
"Pontresina," I gasped wildly. That seemed to be the only town I had ever heard of.
"And you, Sir?" she was asking the old gentleman.
"Macclesfield," he said very decidedly.
The elderly relative was fidgeting to say hers. I could have guessed it would be St. Ives.
The conductress made her way from one end to the other.
"All got towns?" she asked. "You, Sir? Pernambuco? I do wish you'd stick to English names. Are you all ready?"
She rang the bell.
"Now," she said, "the gentleman on the stool has to catch. The Post is going from Paris to Pontresina."
I rose and looked wildly down the car. The flapper was beckoning slightly. Her contemptuous boredom had vanished, and she looked a merry child again. I rushed, stumbled, rocked into her place; she sank with a gasp into mine.
"York to St. Ives!"
It was the paterfamilias who was up now, and the elderly relative was signing to him. In a breathless scurry she was in his place gasping beside me. For the first time in her life she spoke to me.
"What an escape!" she said. "There, he's caught—York, I mean. I don't know his proper name. It's odd, isn't it, we know each other's faces so well and yet we don't know each other's names. Now that we have towns for names, it will be far more friendly, won't it? I always called you Cicero to myself. Oh, I hardly know why—you looked a little satirical sometimes. But now you're Pontresina, of course."
"Macclesfield to Pernambuco!"
"There!" laughed my companion. "I knew Macclesfield would be caught—he's so stately, isn't he? But look how he's laughing. Do you know I never thought any of the people in this car could laugh, or even smile. I do think this Society for the Abolition of Boredom in Public Conveyances is an excellent thing, don't you?"
"Pontresina to St. Ives!"
Breathlessly we changed places; her black hat was a little crooked, but she only laughed.
"I've lost my knitting, too," she said, "but I don't mind. This exercise keeps one so warm these cold days."
The game was in wild progress; the car rocked and jolted and the conductress shouted the names.
"General Post!" she called. "Those inside change places with those outside."
That was the most breathlessly exciting moment of the whole game. There was a solid struggling mass of humanity on the tram staircase. Those without were pushing frantically to come down; we were shoving to get up.
The lady called St. Ives was thumping my shoulders.
"Climb up the railing," she said.
Somehow I did it, and leaned down to catch her hands and drag her upwards. We launched ourselves breathlessly on to the furthest seat.
Stout old Macclesfield was the next. He had lost his hat and his white hair was ruffled.
"I'm here," he said. "Macclesfield for ever!"
The flapper had scrambled up the front staircase against the rules. She cast herself down beside Macclesfield.
"Here I am, old dear," she exclaimed. "I left York simply jammed in the wedge. Oh, isn't it fun? I never laughed so much. We never can be serious with each other after this, can we?"
St. Ives nodded.
"I'll never forget Pontresina climbing the rail," she said. "I used to think him so haughty; now—"
"Albemarle Road—don't you want Albemarle Road?" the conductress was asking me. She spoke very loudly.
"Pontresina—I'm Pontresina," I answered.
"This is Albemarle Road. If you're going on it'll be another penny," she insisted.
I rose in bewilderment.
St. Ives was looking at me while she knitted. I raised my hat to her and smiled. We had been such good friends all the evening—how could I ever forget it? But she did not smile; she only stared. She seemed to think I was mad. Macclesfield was reading his Star just as if he had never hurled himself on to the top of the 'bus. The flapper was squinting at herself in a little pocket-mirror; she looked contemptuously at me as I passed. Old York was half asleep. One would think they had never been rushing about in that frantic General Post. And we were all inside the car again.
It was odd!
"THE BLOKE WOT PAINTED THAT KNEW 'OW TO DO A BIT O' FOOD 'OARDING, DIDN'T 'E?"