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Show Don Piatt and the Postmaster. I had been at Lke George some two weeks without getting any mail matter, although I had sent over almost al-most every day. Wearied out at last, I went myself. I found a little sandy-haired, sandy-haired, heavy-jawed, full-stomached man pegging away at an old boot on a cobbler's bench. I asked thisindus-trious thisindus-trious son of St. Crispin for the postmaster. post-master. "I'm him," responded ths shoe-mender. shoe-mender. He might be a Sam or a him, but I looked incredulous upon the fact asserted as-serted or referred to, of postmaster-ship. postmaster-ship. He continued to drive in the pegs, whistling as shoemakers are won't to whistle, in a waxy way, a tune that, when accompanied by the proper words, refers to some sort of eccentricity of the weasel when popping, pop-ping, whatever that may be. I looked at the vegetable production with car-ioty car-ioty hair and reddish cheeks, as he pegged and popped, aad finding that he intended taking no further notice of me, I mildly suggested that if he were the postmaster I would be pleased to get my letters and papers. "What's your name?" he asked, suspending the whistled popping of the weasel, but going on with his exasperating ex-asperating work. I responded by giving the cognomen, cogno-men, and was told, briefly, in words, to wit : "Ain't nothing for you," and then he took up the extraordinary weasel. I remonstrated, and asserted that there must be some mistake. "Well," he said, "go look for yourself. your-self. There's the P's. " I did as directed, and found eighteen letters and a pile of newspapers. "What the devil do you mean by saying 1 had no mail ?" "Is that your name?" he asked, coolly. ; "Oeitaisly it is." "Well, I thought it was Dan'el Pratt." I was rapidly resolving into an indignation in-dignation meeting, with divers resolutions resolu-tions and a strong tendency to punch somebody's head. "You thought that name Daniel Pratt, did you ? Well, it strikes me that it would be well for you to learn reading and writing before playing the devil in a post-office." "Well, stranger," he responded, suspending both music and work, "ef I had such an outlandish name as your'n I'd go back and be a baby, so as to be christened over, I would. Cor. Cincinnati Commercial. |
