Charlie folded up the papers with a despairing sigh, and walked to the post-office to mail a letter to Mrs. Bird that he had written the previous evening.  Having noticed a number of young men examining some written notices that were posted up, he joined the group, and finding it was a list of wants he eagerly read them over.

To his great delight he found there was one individual at least, who thought boys could be rendered useful to society, and who had written as follows:  “Wanted, a youth of about thirteen years of age who writes a good hand, and is willing to make himself useful in an office.—­Address, Box No. 77, Post-office.”

“I’m their man!” said Charlie to himself, as he finished perusing it—­“I’m just the person.  I’ll go home and write to them immediately;” and accordingly he hastened back to the house, sat down, and wrote a reply to the advertisement.  He then privately showed it to Esther, who praised the writing and composition, and pronounced the whole very neatly done.

Charlie then walked down to the post-office to deposit his precious reply; and after dropping it into the brass mouth of the mail-box, he gazed in after it, and saw it glide slowly down into the abyss below.

How many more had stopped that day to add their contributions to the mass which Charlie’s letter now joined?  Merchants on the brink of ruin had deposited missives whose answer would make or break them; others had dropped upon the swelling heap tidings that would make poor men rich—­rich men richer; maidens came with delicately written notes, perfumed and gilt-edged, eloquent with love—­and cast them amidst invoices and bills of lading.  Letters of condolence and notes of congratulation jostled each other as they slid down the brass throat; widowed mothers’ tender epistles to wandering sons; the letters of fond wives to absent husbands; erring daughters’ last appeals to outraged parents; offers of marriage; invitations to funerals; hope and despair; joy and sorrow; misfortune and success—­had glided in one almost unbroken stream down that ever-distended and insatiable brass throat.

Charlie gave one more look at the opening, then sauntered homeward, building by the way houses of fabulous dimensions, with the income he anticipated from the situation if he succeeded in procuring it.  Throughout the next day he was in a state of feverish anxiety and expectation, and Mrs. Ellis two or three times inquired the meaning of the mysterious whisperings and glances that were exchanged between him and Esther.  The day wore away, and yet no answer—­the next came and passed, still no communication; and Charlie had given up in despair, when he was agreeably surprised by the following:——­

“Messrs. Twining, Western, and Twining will be much obliged to Charles Ellis, if he will call at their office, 567, Water-street, to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock, as they would like to communicate further with him respecting a situation in their establishment.”