I gave you, for the last two weeks, to be conveyed to the 'Poost'?" asks Abbasalli in his vernacular, and the bearer replies, "The first week when you told me to carry your letters to the 'Poost' I went to the shoemaker's and was putting them exactly amongst the 'Poost' (meaning leather and leather-ware), as ordered by you, but, he won't let me do so, and said I should carry the letters to the 'Poos-e-Buzurg' near Aga Bedar's Coffee shop." "Ah! you blockhead, you," explained the exasperated merchant, "but, what did you do with my letters after all when he told you to carry them to the 'Poos-e-Buzurg'?" "Why, rest easy on the point," says the bearer, "I carried them exactly to the 'Poos-e-Buzurg' (meaning the big dock) and threw the letters in. The first time when there was plenty of water in the dock (on account of tide) I had simply to throw your letters in, and I am sure they must have reached their destination quite all right; but the next week, when there was but little water in the dock, I had to dig a pit in the sand to put the mails in, and perhaps they may not have reached their destination."
Poor Abbasalli was quite perplexed and awfully sorry to know that all the valuable letters written by him for the two weeks, some containing cheques even, as I am given to understand, were thus entirely washed away by the merciless waves; but, no less embarrassed am I, on hearing of the tomfoolery, to think of what blame it may sometimes accidentally and unnecessarily entail on a Postmaster, and I therefore venture to put this real story before you, with the fullest hope that, in future, complaints of a like nature may kindly be considered only on their due merits.
I may be allowed to add that the story was related by
