The letter was passed on from one sorter to another, and was finally hung up. Then a sorter wrote in blue pencil across it—
“Now, postal officials, don't curse so;
It's probably intended for Thurso.”
Away went the letter to the extreme north, but Thurso did not own to the young lady. Kirkwall was then tried, and eventually the packet found an owner in a village in the Shetland Islands. This was evidently more than the writer deserved.
A letter was returned undelivered with unmistakable signs on the address portion of the efforts that had been made by the Department to effect its delivery. “Not Cæsar,” “Try Hannibal,” “Not in Jupiter,” “Try Mars,” were the sorters' and postmen's notes, showing that the universe, seen and unseen, had apparently been searched in vain. Yet the owner of the letter was simply an able-bodied seaman attached to the Channel Fleet. Many people will doubtless think what an amusing place the Returned Letter Office must be, and how interesting must be the duty of reading the undelivered letters. But they have only to realise the number which pass through the office daily to understand that very little time can be given to reading other people's correspondence. Moreover, most of it is terribly dull and uninteresting to strangers. Now and then the eye of the clerk spots something good, but he is usually thinking more of correct addresses than jokes. These lines were found in a lost letter written from a wife to her husband at sea:—
“Darling, there is a promise in your eye:
I will tend you while I'm living,
You will whack me while I die—
And if death kindly leads me
To the blessed shades on high