FullReads

The post-office, always the post-office. If he sat down at a meal the shop-bell clanged, and hope springing eternal, he hurried forth in readiness to make up a packet or concoct a mixture; but it was an old lady who held him in talk for ten minutes about rates of postage to South America. When, by rare luck, he had a prescription to dispense (the hideous scrawl of that pestilent Dr. Bunker) in came somebody with letters and parcels which he was requested to weigh; and his hand shook so with rage that he could not resume his dispensing for the next quarter of an hour. People asked extraordinary questions, and were surprised, offended, when he declared he could not answer them. When could a letter be delivered at a village on the north-west coast of Ireland? Was it true that the Post-Office contemplated a reduction of rates to Hong-Kong? Would he explain in detail the new system of express delivery? Invariably he betrayed impatience, and occasionally he lost his temper; people went away exclaiming what a horrid man he was!

‘Mr. What’s-your-name,’ said a shopkeeper one day, after receiving a short answer, ‘I shall make it my business to complain of you to the Postmaster-General. I don’t come here to be insulted.’

‘Who insulted you?’ returned Farmiloe like a sullen schoolboy.

‘Why, you did. And you are always doing it.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

‘If I did’–terror stole upon the chemist’s heart–‘I didn’t mean it, and I–I’m sure I apologise. It’s a way I have.’

‘A damned bad way, let me tell you. I advise you to get out of it.’

‘I’m sorry–‘

‘So you should be.’

And the tradesman walked off, only half appeased.

Mr. Farmiloe could have shed tears in his mortification, and for some minutes he stood looking at a bottle of laudanum, wishing he had the courage to have done with life. Plainly he could not live very long unless things improved. His ready money was coming to an end, rents and taxes loomed before him. An awful thought of bankruptcy haunted him in the early morning hours.

The most frequent visitor to the post-office was a well-dressed, middle-aged man, who spoke civilly, and did his business in the fewest possible words. Mr. Farmiloe rather liked the look of him, and once or twice made conversational overtures, but with no encouraging result. One day, feeling bolder than usual the chemist ventured to speak what he had in mind. After supplying the grave gentleman with stamps and postal-orders, he said, in a tone meant to be conciliatory–

‘I don’t know whether you ever have need of mineral waters, sir?’

‘Why, yes, sometimes. My ordinary tradesman supplies them.’

‘I thought I’d just mention that I keep them in stock.’

‘Ah–thank you–‘

‘I’ve noticed,’ went on the luckless apothecary, his bosom heaving with a sense of his wrongs, ‘that you’re a pretty large customer of the post-office, and it seems to me’–he meant to speak jocosely–‘that it would be only fair if you gave me a turn now and then. I get next to nothing out of this, you know. I should be much obliged if you–‘

The man of few words was looking at him, half in surprise, half in indignation, and when the chemist blundered into silence he spoke:–

‘I really have nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, I was on the point of making a little purchase in your shop, but I decidedly object to this kind of behaviour, and shall make my purchase elsewhere.’

He strode solemnly into the street, and Mr. Farmiloe, unconscious of all about him, glared at vacancy.

Whether from the angry tradesman, or from some lady with whom Mr. Farmiloe had been abrupt, a complaint did presently reach the postal authorities, with the result that an official called at the chemist’s shop. The interview was unpleasant. It happened that Mr. Farmiloe (not for the first time) had just then allowed himself to run out of certain things always in demand by the public–halfpenny stamps, for instance. Moreover, his accounts were not in perfect order. This, he had to hear, was emphatically unbusinesslike, and, in brief, would not do.