Going Postal

that?” said Grandad.
    Princess was bright enough to know that someone would get into trouble if she was too specific.
    “Oh, I just heard it,” she said airily. “Somewhere.”
    “Someone was trying to scare you,” said Grandad, looking at Roger’s reddening ears.
    It hadn’t sounded scary to Princess. If you had to be dead, it seemed a lot better to spend your time flying between the towers than lying underground. But she was bright enough, too, to know when to drop a subject.
    It was Grandad who spoke next, after a long pause broken only by the squeaking of the new shutter bars. When he did speak, it was as if something was on his mind.
    “We keep that name moving in the Overhead,” he said, and it seemed to Princess that the wind in the shutter arrays above her blew more forlornly, and the everlasting clicking of the shutters grew more urgent. “He’d never have wanted to go home. He was a real linesman. His name is in the code, in the wind, in the rigging, and the shutters. Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’?”

CHAPTER 5
    Lost in the Post
In which Stanley experiences the joy of sacks
• Mr. Groat’s ancestral fears • Horsefry is worried
• Reacher Gilt, a man of society • The stairway of letters
• Mailslide! • Mr. Lipwig sees it • Hoodwinked
• The Postman’s Walk • The hat
    S TANLEY POLISHED his pins. He did so with a look of beatific concentration, like a man dreaming with his eyes open.
    The collection sparkled on the folded strips of brown paper and the rolls of black felt that made up the landscape of the true pinhead’s world. Beside him was his large desktop magnifying glass and, by his feet, a sack of miscellaneous pins bought last week from a retiring needlewoman.
    He was putting off the moment of opening it, to savor it all the more. Of course, it’d almost certainly turn out to be full of everyday brassers, with maybe the occasional flathead or line flaw, but the thing was, you never knew . That was the joy of sacks. You never knew. Noncollectors were woefully unconcerned about pins, treating them as if they were no more that thin, pointy bits of metal for sticking things to other things. Many a wonderful pin of great worth had been found in a sack of brassers.
    And now he had a No. 3 Broad-headed “Chicken” Extra Long, thanks to kind Mr. Lipwig. The world shone like the pins so neatly ranged on the felt rolled out in front of him. He might smell faintly of cheese, and have athlete’s foot extending to the knee, but just now Stanley soared through glittering skies on wings of silver.
    Groat sat by the stove, chewing his fingernails and muttering to himself. Stanley paid no attention, since pins were not the subject.
    “—appointed, right? Never mind what The Order says! He can promote anyone, right? That means I get the extra gold button on m’sleeve and the pay, right? None of the others called me Senior Postman! And when all’s said and done, he delivered a letter. Had the letter, saw the address, delivered it, just like that! Maybe he has got postman’s blood! And he got them metal letters put back! Letters again, see? That’s a sign, sure enough. Hah, he can read words that ain’t there!” Groat spat out a fragment of fingernail, and frowned. “But…then he’ll want to know about the New Pie. Oh yeah. But…it’d be like scratching at a scab. Could be bad. Very bad. But…hah, the way he got them letters back for us…very good. Maybe it’s true that one day we’ll get a true Postmaster again, just like they say. ‘Yea, he will tread the Abandoned Roller Skates beneath his Boots, and Lo! the Dogs of the World will Break their Teeth upon Him.’ And he did show us a sign, right? Okay, it was over a posh haircut shop for ladies, but it was a sign, you can’t argue with that. I mean, if it was obvious , anyone could show it to us.” Another sliver of fingernail hit the side of the glowing stove, where it sizzled. “And I ain’t getting any younger, that’s a fact. Probationary, though, that’s not good, that’s not good . What’d happen if I popped my clogs tomorrow, eh? I’d stand there before my forefathers, and they’d say, ‘Art thou Senior Postal Inspector Groat?’ and I’d say no, and they’d say, ‘Art thou then Postal Inspector Groat?’ and I’d say not as such, and they’d say, ‘Then surely thou art Senior Postman Groat?’ and I’d say not in point of fact, and