Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [24]
‘But they could come here and ask you,’ said Johnny.
Hutch stood tall and took a deep breath. ‘They could, Johnny, but I’d never tell them,’ he said in his official ‘post office’ voice. ‘I’m a servant of the Crown, and a private box is called a private box for a reason. That man’s identity and his address are a confidential matter. The very fact that he has a private box is private. I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you about it now.’
Johnny could instantly see the advantages of a private box at the post office. He wanted one. If the replies to his adverts were delivered to the shop, he wouldn’t have to walk to the newspaper offices so often. He was getting worried about the lady there. She seemed to like him, but that was becoming a problem. He always tried to collect Auntie Ada’s letters just before closing time, but even then she wanted to chat. Once, she had suggested that they should walk to her bus stop together, and recently she’d raised her eyebrows at some of the adverts he took in. How long could he trust himself not to say something that would make her suspicious? What if she herself responded to one of the adverts? She had already seemed rather too interested in The Answer to Smelly Feet (Wear a clothes peg on your nose).
Since her company owned most of the newspapers for miles around, Johnny couldn’t avoid the lady, even when he moved his business from one local paper to another. But if his post could be sent to Hutch’s shop, he might be able to start advertising in different places – perhaps even the national papers, which had more readers. Now that he had more money, Johnny could send in his advertisements by mail, paying for them with postal orders and stamps he received from his customers. He might even be able to phone the advertising departments. His voice was still high. They would believe he was Ada Fortune.
‘I think Auntie Ada should have a private box,’ he said to Hutch casually. ‘She must worry about the people who buy her needlework knowing our address. The last thing she needs in her state of health is surprise visitors. And if her letters were delivered here in the first place, I could cash her postal orders with you and take the money straight home. She wouldn’t have to wait so long to get it. How much does a private box cost?’
‘Not much,’ said Hutch. ‘But listen, the poor woman’s an invalid, and I know your family’s having a rough time at present. I won’t make her pay. I’ll cover the costs myself.’
Johnny tried to protest. But before he got the words out, he realized that he couldn’t offer to pay the fee himself. He mustn’t let on that he had a stash of money at home.
‘No, I’ll pay,’ said Hutch, interrupting Johnny’s garbled rejection of the offer, which he took as simple politeness. ‘I insist. It will be a pleasure. But it must all be done properly. You take this form home and get your aunt to fill it in.’
So, that night, Johnny created Ada Fortune’s first official document, beautifully signed. The next day, Hutch marked it with his rubber stamp and filed it away.
‘Tell your auntie that her address is now PO Box Nine, Stambleton, Warwickshire. In future I’ll keep her letters aside, and you can take them home with you.’
Even though the new address would add a few pence to the cost of each advertisement, Johnny knew the private box was going to make his life a lot easier, and he spent the rest of half-term dreaming up new projects. When he looked through the national papers he saw that most of the advertisements were about health and self-improvement. It was obviously a lucrative market, and although Dr Langford had struck a nerve with his criticism of quack medicine, Johnny could see that sending out remedies offered a solution to another problem. He needed to convince Hutch that Auntie Ada really was doing needlework in exchange for all those postal orders. It was time to be seen posting parcels on her behalf. But there was no need for Johnny to sew anything. Hutch would never know what was inside the packages, so Johnny could fill them with ‘cures’