I cursed the whole world. The bag was merely labelled "Forwarding Mail" in letters that could be seen at ninety feet. My own letter, of course, I could read very well, to every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' and the stitching in Catherine's little kerchief. But I could not make out the address printed on the form that was pasted across the front of the letter itself.
As I sat there trying to probe that sealed address, a fast train came along and scooped the bag off the hook.
I caught the next train. I swore and I squirmed and I groaned because that train stopped at every wide spot in the road, paused to take on milk, swap cars, and generally tried to see how long it could take to make a run of some forty miles. This was Fate. Naturally, any train that stopped at my rattle burg would also stop at every other point along the road where some pioneer had stopped to toss a beer bottle off of his covered wagon.
At long last I returned to Pennsylvania Station just in time to perceive my letter being loaded on a conveyor for LaGuardia.
Then the same damned policeman collared me.
"This is it," he said.
"Now see here, officer. I—"
"Will you come quietly, Mr. Cornell? Or shall I put the big arm on you?"
"For what?"
"You've been violating the 'Disclosure' section of the Federal Communications Act, and I know it."