The door was partly open, for the spring night was sultry. The postmaster proved to be a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, and he was sorting rapidly the contents of a mail-bag, emptied on the counter.
"No delivery to-night," he said shortly. "Sunday delivery, two to three."
"I suppose, then, I couldn't get a dollar's worth of stamps," I regretted.
He looked up over his glasses.
"We don't sell stamps on Sunday nights," he explained, more politely. "But if you're in a hurry for them—"
"I am," I lied. And after he had got them out, counting them with a wrinkled finger, and tearing them off the sheet with the deliberation of age, I opened a general conversation.
"I suppose you do a good bit of business here?" I asked. "It seems like a thriving place."
"Not so bad; big mail here sometimes. First of the quarter, when bills are coming round, we have a rush, and holidays and Easter we've got to hire an express wagon."
It was when I asked him about his empty sleeve, however, and he had told me that he lost his arm at Chancellorsville, that we became really friendly When he said he had been a corporal in General Maitland's command, my path was one of ease.
"The Maitland ladies! I should say I do," he said warmly. "I've been fighting with Letitia Maitland as long as I can remember. That woman will scrap with the angel Gabriel at the resurrection, if he wakes her up before she's had her sleep out."