Mail matter is frequently received, through error, for post-offices on
the line of road but just passed, or for post-offices supplied only by
one railway post-office train moving in the opposite direction; to
provide for such mail a pouch is left at the meeting-point of this
train; and so the train plunges on with its busy workers, its
pleasure-seekers, and its composite humanity, The clerks have long since
become grim with the smut of the train, paling all others but the
fireman, and the long-nursed illusion that all government positions are
sinecures is rudely dispelled by their appearance, and an insight into
their arduous duties. As the train lazily rolls into the terminal
station, pouches and sacks are ready for delivery and the clerks make
ready to leave the car.

The instant the train stops, a portion of the mail, large or small as
the case may be, is delivered into a wagon for rapid transfer to a
railway post-office train about to start from another station. If the
incoming train is late, it may be necessary to exact the utmost speed to
reach the outgoing train, and in many cases it is always necessary to
effect it rapidly. After the transfer mail is disposed of, the labels of
the remaining pouches and sacks are examined, and as the mail is passed
out of the car we are surprised at its quantity, filling a number of
large wagons; this, however, does not constitute the entire mail
distributed _en route_, as the quantities delivered at junctions
and stations aggregate, in many cases, more by far than that delivered
at the terminal station, There are many details of work that our space
forbids us to describe, that are technical and of little interest to the
reader, but are of relative importance. These we must leave, and prepare
for the return journey on the night-train, feeling grateful that our
busy fellow-travelers are to have an opportunity to refresh themselves.