Love in the Time of Cholera has a great paragraph:
In the Postal Agency, of course, they did not agree. Florintino Ariza had become negligent, and he was so distracted that he confused the flags that announced the arrival of the mail, and one Wednesday he hoisted the German flag when the ship was in from Leyland Company and carried the mail from Liverpool, and on another day he flew the flag of the United States when the ship was from the Campagnie Generale Transatlantique and carried the mail from Saint Nazaire.
