Going Postal

SAVES CAT
“We’ll Rebuild Bigger!” Vows
as Post Office Blazes
$150,000 Gift From Gods
Wave of Stuck Drawers Hits City

    “It occurs to me that the editor of the Times must sometimes regret that he has only one front page,” he observed dryly.
    There was a sound from the men sitting around the big table in Gilt’s office. It was the kind of sound you get when people are not really laughing.
    “Do you think he has got gods on his side?” said Greenyham.
    “I hardly imagine so,” said Gilt. “He must have known where the money was.”
    “You think so? If I knew where that much money was, I wouldn’t leave it in the ground.”
    “No, you wouldn’t,” said Gilt quietly, in such a way that Greenyham felt slightly uneasy.
    “ Twelve and a half percent! Twelve and a half percent! ” screamed Alphonse, bouncing up and down on his perch.
    “We’re made to look fools, Reacher!” said Stowley. “He knew the line would go down yesterday! He might as well have divine guidance! We’re losing the local traffic already. Every time we have a shutdown you can bet he’ll run a coach out of sheer devilment. There’s nothing that damn man won’t stoop to. He’s turned the Post Office into a…a show!”
    “Sooner or later all circuses leave town,” said Gilt.
    “But he’s laughing at us!” Stowley persisted. “If the Trunk breaks down again, I wouldn’t put it past him to run a coach to Genua!”
    “That would take weeks,” said Gilt.
    “Yes, but it’s cheaper and it gets there. That’s what he’ll say. And he’ll say it loudly, too. We’ve got to do something, Reacher.”
    “And what do you suggest?”
    “Why don’t we just spend some money and get some proper maintenance done?”
    “You can’t,” said a new voice. “You don’t have the men.”
    All heads turned to the man at the far end of the table. He had a jacket on over his overalls and a very battered top hat on the table beside him. His name was Mr. Pony, and he was the Trunk’s chief engineer. He’d come with the company, and had hung on because at the age of fifty-eight, with twinges in your knuckles, a sick wife, and a bad back, you think twice about grand gestures such as storming out. He hadn’t seen a clacks until three years ago, when the first company was founded, but he was methodical, and engineering was engineering.
    Currently his greatest friend in the world was his collection of pink carbon copies. He’d done his best, but he wasn’t going to carry the can when this lot finally fell over, and his pink carbon copies would see to it that he didn’t. White memo paper to the chairman, yellow carbon copy to the file, pink copy you kept. No one could say he hadn’t warned them.
    A two-inch stack of the latest copies was attached to his clipboard. Now, feeling like an elder god leaning down through the clouds of some Armaggedon and booming “Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I warn you? Did you listen? Too late to listen now!” he put on a voice of strained patience:
    “I’ve got six maint’nance teams. I had eight last week. I sent you a memo about that, got the copies right here. We ought to have eighteen teams. Half the lads are needin’ to be taught as we go, and we ain’t got time for teachin’. In the ol’ days we’d set up walkin’ towers to take the load an’ we ain’t got men even to do that now—”
    “All right, it’ll take time, we understand ,” said Greenyham. “How long will it take if you…hire more men and get these walking towers working and—”
    “You made me sack a lot of the craftsmen,” said Pony.
    “We didn’t sack them, we ‘let them go,’” said Gilt.
    “We…downsized,” said Greenyham.
    “Looks like you succeeded, sir,” said Pony. He took a stub of pencil out of one pocket and a grubby notebook out of the other.
    “D’you want it fast or cheap or good, gentlemen?” he said. “The way things have gone, can only give you one out of three…”
    “How soon can we have the Grand Trunk running properly?” said Greenyham, while Gilt leaned back and shut his eyes.
    Pony’s lips moved as he ran eyes over his figures.
    “Nine months,” he said.
    “I suppose if we’re seen to be working hard, nine months of erratic running won’t seem too—” Mr. Stowley began.
    “Nine months shut down,” said Mr. Pony.
    “Don’t be a fool, man!”
    “I ain’t a fool, sir, thank you,” said Pony sharply. “I’ll have to find and train new craftsmen, ’cos a lot