mail bags at a' hour fixed by himself. This became a great inconvenience
to our citizens, who were often late in finishin' their correspondence,
and who had always found our former postmaster willin' either to hold
the bag over until the next day, or to send it across to Drummondtown
by a boy to catch a later train.

"Well, suh, Colonel Talcott's mission to the post-office was to mail
a letter to his factor in Richmond, Virginia, on business of the utmost
importance to himself,--namely, the raisin' of a small loan upon his
share of the crop. Not the crop that was planted, suh, but the crop
that he expected to plant.
"Colonel Talcott approached the hole, and with that Chesterfieldian
manner which has distinguished the Talcotts for mo' than two centuries
asked the postmaster for the loan of a three-cent postage stamp.

"To his astonishment, suh, he was refused.

"Think of a Talcott in his own county town bein' refused a three-cent
postage stamp by a low-lived Yankee, who had never known a gentleman
in his life! The colonel's first impulse was to haul the scoundrel
through the hole and caarve him; but then he remembered that he was
a Talcott and could not demean himself, and drawin' himself up again
with that manner which was grace itself he requested the loan of a
three-cent postage stamp until he should communicate with his factor
in Richmond, Virginia; and again he was refused. Well, suh, what was
there left for a high-toned Southern gentleman to do? Colonel Talcott
drew his revolver and shot that Yankee scoundrel through the heart,
and killed him on the spot.

"And now, suh, comes the most remarkable part of this story. If it had