The third morning that room was filled up, and they stuffed Mr. Burke’s private sanctum with spare bags.
The fourth morning they occupied a couple of bedrooms.
The fifth morning half a dozen flunkeys were arranging bales of Murphy letters on the stairs.
Then there was a lull in the Castle, for that day was Sunday.
But it was a deceptive lull, because it enabled every right-thinking Murphy to let himself loose, and on Monday three van loads of letters for Mr. Murphy were sent out to the viceregal lodge.
Day after day the stream flowed regularly for about a week, when the grand climax came. It was St. Valentine’s morning, and, in addition to the orthodox correspondence, every man, woman, and child who loved or hated, adored or despised a Murphy, contributed his or her quota to the general chaos.
The post-office authorities had to invoke the aid of the Army Service Corps, and from 8 A.M. till midnight the quays and Phœnix Park were blocked with a caravan of conveyances bearing boxes and chests and tubs and barrels and sacks and hampers of notes and letters and illustrated protestations of affection or highly-colored expressions of contempt for Murphy from every quarter of the inhabitable globe.
Then the bewildered denizens of the Castle had to telegraph to the War Office for permission to take the magazine and the Ordnance Survey quarters, and the Pigeonhouse Fort and a barracks or two, to store the intercepted epistles in.
Forster wouldn’t undertake to go through the work,—the order to overhaul Murphy’s letters had come from Harcourt, and Harcourt would have to do it himself. Well, Harcourt went across, but when he saw the task that had accumulated for him, he threatened to resign unless he was relieved.
Finally, the admiralty ordered the channel fleet to convey the Murphy correspondence out to the middle of the Atlantic, where it was committed to the treacherous waves.