“A man of your descent,” said Lippity-Libby, “can’t help havin’ relatives in great quantities dispersed about the world.  I’ve figured it out, and the sum works like that old ’un we used to do on our slates about a horse-shoe.  Your great-grandfather married your great-grandmother, and that set the ball rollin’—­to go no farther back than the head will carry.  Six sons an’ daughters they had, for the sake of argyment, and each married and had six again.  Why, damme, by that time there’s not a quarter in Europe where a rich chap deceased mayn’t be croppin’ up and leavin’ you his money, for no better reason than that you’re a Nanjivell.  That always seemed to me one of the advantages of good birth.  For my part,” the postman continued, “my father and mother never spoke of such matters, though she was a Collins and married in Lanteglos parish, where I daresay the whole pedigary could be looked up, if one wasn’t a postman and could spare the time.  But in the long evenings since my poor wife’s death I often find time to think of you, Mr Nanjivell; bein’ both of us lame of the right leg as it happens.  Hows’ever ‘tisn’ no news o’ riches for ’ee to-day, sorry as I be to say it:  for the postmark’s ‘Polpier.’”

He tendered the letter.  Nicky-Nan stretched out a hand, but drew it back on a sudden suspicion.

“No,” he said.  “You may take an’ keep it.  ’Tis a trick, I doubt.”

“You can’t mean that, surely?” Lippity-Libby eyed the letter almost greedily, holding it between finger and thumb.  “Of course, if I thought you meant it—­I don’t remember gettin’ more ’n three letters in all my life; that’s if you don’t count the trade they send me at election times, tellin’ me where to put my cross.  Three letters all told, and one o’ they was after my poor Sarah died, threatenin’ me about the rates, that had slipped out o’ my head, she bein’ in the habit of payin’ them when alive.  The amount o’ fault she’d find in ‘em, too, an’ the pleasure she’d take in it, you’d never believe.  I’ve often thought how funny she must be feelin’ it up there—­the good soul—­with everything of the best in lighting an’ water, an’ no rates at all—­or that’s how I read the last chapter o’ Revelations. . . .  Yes, only three letters of my own, that have handed so many to other people, with births, marriages, an’ deaths, shipwrecks an’ legacies an’ lovin’ letters from every port in the world.  Telegrams too—­I’d dearly like to get a telegram of my own. . . .  But Government be a terrible stickler.  You may call it red tape, if you will:  but if Mrs Pengelly caught me holdin’ back any person’s letter, even though I knowed it held trouble for ’en, she’d be bound to report me, poor soul, an’ then like enough I’d lose place an’ livelihood.  So I thank ‘ee, naybour, for bein’ so forward to give me a bit o’ pleasure; but ’twon’t do—­no, by the Powers Above it won’t.”  He shook his head sadly.  Then of a sudden his eye brightened.  “I tell ’ee what, though.  There’s no rule of His Majesty’s Service why I shouldn’ stand by while you reads it aloud.”