Going Postal

favors and we’ll get good horses at the post houses, Mr. Lipwig, but we only go as far as Bonk, you know? Then you’ll have to change. The Genua Express is pretty good, though. We know the lads.”
    “You’re sure you want to hire the whole coach?” said Harry, as he rubbed down a horse. “It’ll be expensive, ’cos we’ll have to run another for the passengers. It’s a popular run, that one.”
    “Just the mail in that coach,” said Moist. “And some guards.”
    “Ah, you think you’ll be attacked?” said Harry, squeezing the towel bone-dry with barely an effort.
    “What do you think?” said Moist.
    The brothers looked at each other.
    “I’ll drive it, then,” said Jim. “They don’t call me Lead-pipe for nothing.”
    “Besides, I heard there were bandits up in the mountains,” said Moist.
    “Used to be,” said Jim. “Not as many now.”
    “That’s something less to worry about, then,” said Moist.
    “Dunno,” said Jim. “We never found out what wiped them out.”

    A LWAYS REMEMBER that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.
    People like a show…
    …and so mail was coming in for Genua, a dollar at a time. A lot of mail.
    It was Stanley who explained. He explained several times, because Moist had a bit of a blind spot on this one.
    “People are sending envelopes with stamps inside envelopes to the coach office in Genua so that the first envelope can be sent back in the second envelope,” was the shape of explanation that finally blew on some sparks in Moist’s brain.
    “They want the envelopes back?” he said. “Why?”
    “Because they’ve been used, sir.”
    “That makes them valuable?”
    “I’m not sure how, sir. It’s like I told you, sir. I think some people think that they’re not real stamps until they’ve done the job they were invented to do, sir. Remember the first printing of the one-penny stamps that we had to cut out with scissors? An envelope with one of those on it is worth two dollars to a collector.”
    “Two hundred times more than the stamp?”
    “That’s how it’s going, sir,” said Stanley, his eyes sparkling. “People post letters to themselves just to get the stamp, er, stamped, sir. So they’ve been used.”
    “Er…I’ve got a couple of rather crusty handkerchiefs in my pocket,” said Moist, mystified. “Do you think people might want to buy them at two hundred times what they cost?”
    “No, sir!” said Stanley.
    “Then why should—”
    “There’s a lot of interest, sir. I thought we could do a whole set of stamps for the big guilds, sir. All the collectors would want them. What do you think?”
    “That’s a very clever idea, Stanley,” said Moist. “We’ll do that. The one of the Seamstresses’ Guild might have to go inside a plain brown envelope, eh? Ha ha!”
    This time it was Stanley who looked perplexed.
    “Sorry, sir?”
    Moist coughed. “Oh, nothing. Well, I can see you’re learning fast, Stanley. Some things, anyway.”
    “Er…yes, sir. Er…I don’t want to push myself forward, sir—”
    “Push away, Stanley, push away,” said Moist cheerfully.
    Stanley pulled a small paper folder out of his pocket, opened it, and laid it reverentially in front of Moist.
    “Mr. Spools helped me with some of it,” he said. “But I did a lot.”
    It was a stamp. It was a yellowy-green color. It showed—Moist peered—a field of cabbages, with some buildings on the horizon.
    He sniffed. It smelled of cabbages. Oh, yes.
    “Printed with cabbage ink and using gum made from broccoli, sir,” said Stanley, full of pride. “‘A Salute to the Cabbage Industry of the Sto Plains,’ sir. I think it might do very well. Cabbages are so popular, sir. You can make so many things out of them!”
    “Well, I can see that—”
    “There’s cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage—”
    “Yes, Stanley, I think you—”
    “—pickled cabbage, cabbage jelly, cabbage salad, boiled cabbage, deep-fried cabbage—”
    “Yes, but now can—”
    “—fricassee of cabbage, cabbage chutney, cabbage Surprise, sausages—”
    “Sausages?”
    “Filled with cabbage, sir. You can make practically anything with cabbage, sir. Then there’s—”
    “Cabbage stamps,” said Moist terminally. “At fifty pence, I note. You have hidden depths, Stanley.”
    “I owe it all to you, Mr. Lipwig!” Stanley burst out. “I have put the