The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

Shall we require in such circumstances to visit one another so frequently? Will railway receipts fall off? Will the taxi-cab wait in vain for a call? There is one certain thing the popularising of the telephone will effect— it will test the sincerity of our friend who protests that he is anxious to see us, and to be in our company. If this sentiment, as is often the case, arises merely out of a desire to hear himself talk, the man may simply use the telephone. We, too, have an advantage: we can cut him off. CHAPTER XIV ENGINEERS, STORES AND FACTORIES (a) The Engineers In writing of the activities of the General Post Office, it is difficult to know where to stop, or in that slaughter of the innocents which must always take place when space is not available, to decide who is to be spared. We certainly cannot leave out the Post Office engineer. He often works unseen and unappreciated by the general public, but he has this consolation, that he is indispensable, and in the Post Office of the future he may become the most important man in the service. Sometimes, perhaps, our eye may have been arrested, when passing along a street, by the spectacle of a man apparently attempting acrobatic feats on the top of a telegraph pole, and he will often attract the same curious attention from a London crowd as a fallen horse or a motor car in difficulties. He is probably an employé of the Post Office, and belongs to the Engineer's Department.