CHAPTER XXII.
"Well, Winter," said Octavius Milburn, "I expect there's business in this for you." Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking their boxes at the post-office.

Elgin had enjoyed postal delivery for several years, but not so much as to induce men of business to abandon the post-office box that had been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry.
In time the boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in for your own noonday mail on the way home to dinner was deep-rooted, and undoubtedly you got it earlier.

Moreover, it takes time to engender confidence in a postman when he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly well that he would otherwise be driving the mere watering-cart, or delivering the mere ice, as he was last year.
"Looks like it," responded Mr Winter, cheerfully.

"The boys have been round as usual.

I told them they'd better try another shop this time, but they seemed to think the old reliable was good enough to go on with." This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently simple.