[Single ruled leaf torn from a courier's round book, folded small and tucked behind the binding of the Northgate bag-book, where the stitching leaves a gap. The hand is quick and even. Undated; the round numbers place it in the third week of April.]
Copied fair from the bag-book before it goes back to the office, because papers in that office have been getting new dates.
Morning check, 13 April: two ordinary sacks, one basket, no insured piece. Signed V.P., 7.40, Mr. Marrow at the window side. My mark. My time.
Afternoon round, 13 April: letters only past the corn exchange, Crane Court end. Nothing registered in the bag, for there was nothing registered to carry.
Now there is a certificate over Mr. Venn's name that says parcel no. 418 went out of my delivery bag that afternoon. I have not been shown this certificate. I had word of it from the auction porter, who had it from the claim woman, which is a strange road for news to travel about my own bag.
Crane Court is mine. I have carried for Miss Tolliver two years, her letters and her sister's both, and if that packet had ever been in my bag it would have gone to her door whole, ribbon and all. A courier does not lose what a window never gave her.
I do not ask the office to unsay its paper. Paper does not unsay. I set this down and put it where a book cannot be re-ruled, and if any person finds it, know the bag-book page for the 13th had my times in it before ever it went back through the office door.
V. Pike