"They can take your money and ship your telegram next year if they want
to--you've no redress. The law ought to extend the privilege to all of
us."

The boy looked upon me coldly.

I asked him when the telegram reached York Harbor. He pointed to some
figures following the signature at the bottom of the blank--"12.14."
I said it was now 1.45 and asked--

"Do you mean that it reached your morgue an hour and a half ago?"

He nodded assent.

"It was at that time half an hour too late to be of any use to me, if I
wanted to go and meet my people--which was the case--for by the wording
of the message you can see that they were to arrive at the station at
11.45. Why did, your h. c. send me this useless message? Can't he read?
Is he dead?"

"It's the rules."

"No, that does not account for it. Would he have sent it if it had been
three years old, I in the meantime deceased, and he aware of it?"

The boy didn't know.

"Because, you know, a rule which required him to forward to the cemetery
to-day a dispatch due three years ago, would be as good a rule as one
which should require him to forward a telegram to me to-day which he knew