Special deliveries.(Ryan)

ON THE TABLE before me as I write lies an old used envelope. It measures about 140 centimetres wide by 100 centimetres high--not, I think, dimensions which would be accepted today as "post office preferred". (Just love that sub-fascist purr in "preferred"; in the mouths of monopolies, what such gentle phrases really mean is: "We prefer it! And you had better learn to prefer it, pretty damn quick! Ve haf vays ...!')

This particular old envelope harks back to earlier days, before modern A4 sheets of paper, and when the commonest size of letter stationery was called "quarto". This envelope would have housed most snugly a quarto sheet folded twice (that is, folded into four).

Two neat scissor cuts show where some frugal philatelist has preserved the stamp, but we know when the envelope was used, and we know that it travelled the cross-continental journey from Western Australia to Victoria. The postmark clearly proclaims: "Fremantle 20 Aug 1935 12.15 p.m." They were the days, weren't they, when each item in your mail told you where it was posted and when. I would have been about eight years old when someone in the West dropped it in a red pillar-box. (Remember them?)

Who can have given me this envelope? If they happen to read these lines I should very much like to hear from them. The address, neatly typed, reads precisely as follows:

 
   Mr Michael Joseph McKenzie McHarg 
   who is sure to be found sitting on 
   the stool at 
   Morry Slade's Sports Store, 
   Little Collins Street, 
   Melbourne. 

What were Mr McHarg's thoughts when the friendly 1930s postie (they were all friendly in those days--see below) strode into the sports store, canvas bag slung across his shoulders, and handed the letter to the citizen sitting on the stool?

Was this missive some clandestine communication too secret to be sent to him at home in the ordinary way? Was it a letter of assignation? Was Mr McHarg "on the run" from someone, or something? Who had