Now then, after uttering my serious word, am I privileged to be frivolous
for a moment? When you shall have achieved cheap telegraphy, are you
going to employ it for just your own selfish profit and other people's
pecuniary damage, the way you are doing with your cheap postage? You get
letter-postage reduced to 2 cents an ounce, then you mail me a 4-ounce
letter with a 2-cent stamp on it, and I have to pay the extra freight at
this end of the line. I return your envelope for inspection. Look at
it. Stamped in one place is a vast "T," and under it the figures "40,"
and under those figures appears an "L," a sinister and suspicious and
mysterious L. In another place, stamped within a circle, in offensively
large capitals, you find the words "DUE 8 CENTS." Finally, in the midst
of a desert space up nor-noreastard from that circle you find a figure
"3" of quite unnecessarily aggressive and insolent magnitude--and done
with a blue pencil, so as to be as conspicuous as possible. I inquired
about these strange signs and symbols of the postman. He said they were
P. O. Department signals for his instruction.

"Instruction for what?"

"To get extra postage."

"Is it so? Explain. Tell me about the large T and the 40.

"It's short for Take 40--or as we postmen say, grab 40"

Go on, please, while I think up some words to swear with."

"Due 8 means, grab 8 more."

"Continue."