It is most irritating
to have anything to do with such impracticable and silly mortals. But
it is a delightful thing to work along with a man who never takes
offence,--a frank, manly man, who gives credit to others for the same
generosity of nature which he feels within himself, and who, if he
thinks he has reason to complain, speaks out his mind and has things
cleared up at once. A disagreeable person is he who frequently sends
letters to you without paying the postage,--leaving you to pay
twopence for each penny which he has thus saved. The loss of twopence
is no great matter; but there is something irritating in the feeling
that your correspondent has deliberately resolved that he would save
his penny at the cost of your twopence. There is a man, describing
himself as a clergyman of the Church of England, (I cannot think he is
one,) who occasionally sends me an abusive anonymous letter, and who
invariably sends his letters unpaid. I do not mind about the man's
abuse; but I confess I grudge my twopence. I have observed, too, that
the people who send letters unpaid do so habitually. I have known the
same individual send six successive letters unpaid. And it is
probably within the experience of most of my readers, that, out of
(say) a hundred correspondents, ninety-nine invariably pay their
letters properly, while time after time the hundredth sends his with
the abominable big 2 stamped upon it, and your servant walks in and
worries you by the old statement that the postman is waiting.
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