Your servant,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
What a disappointment about the tartan! Please try again. And another thing; I am anxious to possess some personal relic of Mary, Queen of Scots. Could you possibly get me something — one of her sweet little shoes, for instance. You must remember, Mr. Marchbanks, that I have been an orphan for the last 45 years. Surely I deserve some consideration from one who, whatever his faults, is a man, and should be glad to assist the weak and helpless.
Yours confidingly,
Minerva Hawser.
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To Miss Minerva Hawser.
Dear Miss Hawser:
Really I cannot get the 18 yards of the Hawser tartan you ask for. Could you manage with an equal length of something else? I was talking two days ago with Mr. Telfer Dunbar, who is said to know more about tartans than anybody else in Edinburgh, and he says there is no earthly reason why anybody should not wear any tartan that pleases them. From my recollection of your person, a few yards of a hound’s-tooth tweed suggests itself for an appropriate evening gown. As for Mary Queen of Scots’ shoes, I have not seen any for sale. What makes you think, by the way, that they would be sweet and little? Are you aware that Mary was six feet tall? With such a physique she may well have had feet like a policeman. I fear that you are a romantic.
Yours unromantically,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.
Dear Pil:
I am having a wonderful time in Edinburgh. There is a kindly spirit here which is beyond the professional kindliness of tourist bureaux; it is entirely genuine and unselfish. The Festival is the great thing at present, of course. There are a good many young people about, as well as the usual congregation of the lame, the halt and the blind that artistic gatherings always attract. There are plenty of Scots wearing the kilt, and last night I saw some of them dance a strathspey most attractively, and then follow it up with a dance called “Prince Charles of Edinburgh.” I suggested that he was Prince of Wales, and attracted some darkling Highland glances. The Scots nationalists tend to wear beards as a sort of trademark, and from time to time I am mistaken for one of their number. There are all sorts of things here which would engage your scholarly attention: for instance, a learned Scot showed me a volume of poems by Burns which have not previously been collected, as they were deemed to be of too frank a nature to appear in print. Mild stuff, really, in the lurid light of modern literature but the Scots have a low threshold of outrage. And you would be delighted by the magnificent stone-masonry one sees everywhere, and by the high quality of commercial sign-writing even on the most ordinary shops. I saw one yesterday bearing the name of “Madam Doubtfire”; charming, don’t you think? And I have seen a tram which claimed it went to Joppa. Surely odder even than a Streetcar named Desire?
Yours,
Sam.
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To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Marchbanks:
While you are in Scotland will you collect and send me a dozen new Scotch stories? I have just been appointed to head the Speaker’s Committee of the Rowanis Club for the next year, and good funny stories are scarce. I find that stories about Scotchmen are always popular. Oh, yes, and will you send me a few tips about the Scotch accent? Everybody thinks I tell stories very well, but I have only one funny accent and it has to do for Scotch, Irish, Jewish, Negro, etc. I would like to specialize in Scotch stories. Please hurry about this, as I haven’t any time to waste.
Yours eagerly,
Dick Dandiprat.
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To Richard Dandiprat, ESQ.
My presumptuous Dandiprat:
I have no time to send you Scotch stories, even if I knew any. Nor can I help you with your assault upon Scottish vernacular. Everyone speaks it here, but it defies analysis. Yesterday a lady of my acquaintance said to me, “Hoo lang is it sin’ ye pit meat in yer wame?” She was enquiring when I had last eaten. The acquisition of the right accent for such a remark is far beyond your feeble powers so no more from
Yours regretfully,
S. Marchbanks.
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To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.
Dear Pil:
At last the flood of letters subsides, and I have a moment to write to you.
The Edinburgh-London journey took from 10:40 a.m. until 8:15 p.m. I grew bored with sitting still and felt like the Hermit in the legend. You know it? It seems that there dwelt in the desert a certain Hermit whose goodness and austerity were so great that news of him reached the ears of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. So the Patriarch sent for the Hermit, who bestrode a mule and rode without stopping for 40 days and 40 nights. At last he was in the presence of the Patriarch, who considerately bade him to take a seat. “Nay,” said the Hermit, “of sitting, as of all earthly pleasures, there cometh at length satiety.”
Meals in English trains are perhaps a little worse than they used to be. That brown soup is somewhat browner, the coffee is somewhat weaker, and the cheese hints more strongly than ever at an origin in a soap factory. The English are not really a puritanical people, but railway meals suggest a dreadful mortification of the flesh — an urge to take the joy out of travel.
As I wander about my fancy is greatly caught by the unusual names which I see on signs and advertisements. Just as I left Edinburgh I saw a beauty over a clothing store — Clinkscales. Now if I wrote a book in which anyone was called Clinkscales the critics would accuse me of being fanciful. Yet it appears that people of that name really exist. Wonderful! Travel is so broadening.
Yours broadly,
Sam.
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To Samuel Mockbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Mackbonks:
In your correspondence with the Passport Agency and Fiscal Control Board recently, your “Form Z” was returned to this office unstamped. It is therefore invalid, and the sterling currency now in your possession has no legal existence. In order that your position may be regularized as soon as possible, you must secure Forms H and Q from the British Currency Legitimization Authority, and obtain permission to export one cent (1¢) in Canadian currency to us. We shall purchase a one-cent stamp for your “Form Z” with this sum. A further charge for service in purchasing, moistening and affixing the stamp, amounting to five dollars, will also be charged. Please attend to this matter immediately, as until you do so your money is a fiction.
Yours,
Haubergeon Hydra
(Sub-deputy Fiscal Represser).
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To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Hydra:
Far be it from me to dispute the word of a government official, but my sterling currency seems to be quite real. The people of Edinburgh are willing and even eager to accept it. However, if you want a one-cent stamp I happen, by a lucky chance, to have one in my pocket, which I enclose. You overestimate the difficulty of getting it on to the document; it is not five dollars worth of work even for a Civil Servant. Just a quick lick and a slap, and it’s done.
Yours, with dripping tongue,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Miss Minerva Hawser.
Dear Miss Hawser:
Yes, I quite understand your passion for relics of eminent persons. But I assure you, dear lady, that it is not easy for me to procure for you anything which would be, as you phrase it in your letter to me “a link with past greatness, and an inspiration to great achievement.” You have asked me for Sir Walter Scott’s walking-stick and for Robert Burns’ snuffbox; I regret that both of these interesting objects are in museums, and I am too timid to steal them, even in order that you may exhibit them to the Canadian Authors’ Association, who doubtless need them.
The only relic I can get you is associated with Haigh, the Vampire; no doubt you read that he was hanged on August 10, 1949, for murdering no less than nine ladies of about your own age and general character; after each murder he drank a glass of his victim’s blood, mingled with a liquid which he supplied from his own person. How’s that for connoisseurship? A friend of mine has a tumbler which he is practically certain was used by Haigh in one of those curious toasts, and he will let me have it for only £10. If you want it please cable this sum immediately. I am sure your branch of the Authors’ Association would be thrilled. All friends around the punchbowl!
Yours amiably,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Hydra:
As I understand that you are permanent secretary of the Government Alcoholic Discouragement Board, I write to ask you why there is no cider for sale in my part of Canada. Since coming to Britain I have renewed my acquaintance with this wonderful drink (or beverage, as I suppose you call it) and I want to know why I cannot get it at home. Canada is a great apple country: then why no cider? Cider rejoiceth the heart of man (and of woman) Hydra, old boy, and the Canadian heart could do with a good rejoicing.