But the black men found the heavy uniforms dreadfully hot for Fantippo weather, where they wear only a string of beads. And they left off the uniforms and wore only the caps. That is how the Fantippo postman's uniform came to be a smart cap, a string of beads and a mail bag.
Then when King Koko had got his mail-men, the Royal Fantippo post office began really working. Letters were collected from the boxes at street corners and sent off when ships called; and incoming mail was delivered at the doors of the houses in Fantippo three times a day. The post office became the busiest place in town.
Now, the peoples of West Africa have curious tastes in dress. They love bright things. And some Fantippo dandy started the idea of using up old stamps off letters by making suits of clothes out of them. They looked very showy and smart and a suit of this kind made of stamps became a valuable possession among the natives.
About this time, too, in the civilized parts of the world one of the things that arose out of all this penny-postage business was the craze or hobby for collecting stamps. In England and America and other countries people began buying stamp albums and pasting stamps in them. A rare stamp became quite valuable.
And it happened that one day two men, whose hobby was collecting stamps, came to Fantippo in a ship. The one stamp they were both most anxious to get for their collections was the "twopenny-halfpenny Fantippo red," a stamp which the King had given up printing—for the reason that the picture of himself on it wasn't handsome enough. And because he had given up printing it, it became very rare.
As soon as these two men stepped ashore at Fantippo a porter came up to them to carry their bags. And right in the middle of the porter's chest the collectors spied the twopenny-halfpenny Fantippo red! Then both of the stamp collectors offered to buy the stamp. And as each was anxious to have it for his collection, before long they were offering high prices for it, bidding against one another.
King Koko got to hear of this and he called up one of these stamp collectors and asked him why men should offer high prices for one old used stamp. And the white man explained to him this new craze for stamp collecting that was sweeping over the civilized world.
So King Koko, although he thought that the civilized world must be crazy, decided it would be a good idea if he sold stamps for collections—much better business than selling them at his post office for letters. And after that whenever a ship came into the harbor of Fantippo he sent his Postmaster-General—a very grand man, who wore two strings of beads, a postman's cap and no mail bag—out to the ship with stamps to sell for collections.
Such a roaring trade was done in this way that the King set the stamp printing presses to work more busily than ever, so that a whole new set of Fantippo stamps should be ready for sale by the time the same ship called again on her way home to England.
But with this new trade in selling stamps for stamp collections, and not for proper mailing purposes, the Fantippo mail service was neglected and became very bad.