"For twenty-five years I marched and fought under that same flag," said the old soldier, dropping into his brogue, "and under it, plaze God, I'll die."
I looked at the old man. In his large dark-blue eyes shone that "fire that never slumbers"—the fire of loyal valor, with its strange power to transform common clay into men of heroic mould. The flag, the garden, the postoffice—these were Ould Michael's household gods. The equipment of the postoffice was primitive enough.
"Where are the boxes?" I inquired; "the letter-boxes, you know; to put the letters into."
"An' what wud I do puttin' them into boxes, at all?"
"Why, to distribute the mail so that you could find every man's letter when he calls for it."
"An' what would I be doin' findin' a man's letter for him? Shure an' can't he find it himself on the counter there?" pointing to a wide plank that ran along the wall.
I explained fully the ordinary system of distributing mail to him.
"Indade, 'tis a complicated system intoirely," and then he proceeded to explain his own, which he described as "simple and unpretenshus" and, sure enough, it was; for the letters were strewn upon the top of the counter, the papers and other mail-matter thrown underneath, and every man helped himself to his own.
"But might there not be mistakes?" I suggested. "A man might take his neighbor's letter."