Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/127

 them! Or could we only peer over the shoulders of those who stand writing at the blackened, ink-stained desks, what meshes of joy and pain we might see raveled in the lives of plain men and women! The great tapestry of human life lies all round us, and we have to pluck clumsily at its patterns thread by thread.

One who is interested in bookish matters ought to make a point of going upstairs to the registered mail room on the second floor. In a corner of that room, sitting in a well-worn chair under a drop light, you may be fortunate enough to find one of the postoffice guards, an elderly philosopher who beguiles the evening vigil with a pipe and a book. He is a genial sage and a keen devourer of print. He eats books alive. Marie Corelli and Marion Crawford are among his favorites for lighter ministration, but in the past few weeks his mind has been on graver matter. He has just finished a life of Napoleon and a biography of Joan of Arc. Tonight when I went in to register a letter his chair was empty (he was having his supper of sandwiches and a little bucket of coffee at a table in the dim hallway outside), but on the shelf lay his book, pipe and tobacco pouch. I could not resist peeking to see what the volume was. Little's Life of Saint Francis of Assisi. Verily, if our government officials are taking to reading of Saint Francis, the world looks forward to happier days.

The Secretary of the Treasury says in a notice "Loitering about this building is prohibited," but