“Good Lord!” you can see him say, “here’s another of ’em. If there has been one man worrying me this morning there have been a hundred. Always the same story: all of ’em want to come and see the play. You listen now; bet you anything he’s going to bother me for tickets. Really, it gets on my nerves sometimes.”
At the railway station it is just the same.
“Another man who wants to go to Antwerp! Don’t seem to care for rest, these people: flying here, flying there, what’s the sense of it?” It is this absurd craze on the part of the public for letter-writing that is spoiling the temper of the continental post-office official. He does his best to discourage it.
“Look at them,” he says to his assistant—the thoughtful German Government is careful to provide every official with another official for company, lest by sheer force of ennui he might be reduced to taking interest in his work—“twenty of ’em, all in a row! Some of ’em been there for the last quarter of an hour.”
“Let ’em wait another quarter of an hour,” advises the assistant; “perhaps they’ll go away.”
“My dear fellow,” he answers, “do you think I haven’t tried that? There’s simply no getting rid of ’em. And it’s always the same cry: ‘Stamps! stamps! stamps!’ ’Pon my word, I think they live on stamps, some of ’em.”
“Well let ’em have their stamps?” suggests the assistant, with a burst of inspiration; “perhaps it will get rid of ’em.”
Why the Man in Uniform has, generally, sad Eyes.
“What’s the use?” wearily replies the older man. “There will only come a fresh crowd when those are gone.”
“Oh, well,” argues the other, “that will be a change, anyhow. I’m tired of looking at this lot.”