“Do you mean to tell me,” she said, turning full on Mr Bright, and pointing downwards, “that that ocean of letters will be gone, and these tables emptied by eight o’clock?”
“Indeed I do, ma’am; and more than what you see there, for the district bags have not all come in yet. By eight o’clock these tables will be as bare as the palm of my hand.”
Mr Bright extended a large and manly palm by way of emphasising his remark.
Miss Lillycrop was too polite to say, “That’s a lie!” but she firmly, though mutely, declined to believe it.
“D’you observe the tables just below us, ma’am?”
He pointed to what might have been six large board-room tables, surrounded by boys and men as close as they could stand. As, however, the tables in question were covered more than a foot deep with letters, Miss Lillycrop only saw their legs.
“These are the facing-tables,” continued Mr Bright. “All that the men and lads round ’em have got to do with the letters there is to arrange them for the stampers, with their backs and stamps all turned one way. We call that facing the letters. They have also to pick out and pitch into baskets, as you see, all book-packets, parcels, and newspapers that may have been posted by mistake in the letter-box.”
While the sorter went on expounding matters, one of the tables had begun to show its wooden surface as its “faced” letters were being rapidly removed, but just then a man with a bag on his shoulder came up, sent a fresh cataract of letters on the blank spot, and re-covered it. Presently a stream of men with bags on their backs came in.
“These are the district mails, ma’am,” explained Mr Bright; “during the last half-hour and more they have been hurrying towards us from all quarters of London; the nearest being brought by men on foot, the more distant bags by vans. Some are still on their way; all will concentrate here at last, in time for sorting.”
The contents of these bags as they came in were shot out, and the facing-tables—all of which had begun to show symptoms of the flood going down and dry land appearing—were flooded and reflooded again and again to a greater depth than before.