*
To Mordecai Mouseman, ESQ.
Dear Mouseman:
I enclose a letter which I have received from a firm which seems to have just what we want. The trial draws near—at least I hope it does, for it is now almost a year since Dandiprat ruined my car—and I will not tolerate any fumbling. I want Dandiprat to get at least two years hard labour. We want witnesses; these people have them. Will you attend to the matter?
Yours,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
Oh, Mr. Marchbanks, sir! Oh, unhappiest of our clients!! Oh, luckless litigant!!! How often have I not counselled you against taking any step without consulting your lawyer; how often has not our senior partner, Mr. Jabez Mouseman (now, alack, prone upon a bed of pain—shingles, I grieve to say) given you the same tried and true advice? Tell me—though I dread the answer, knowing your fiery and impetuous nature—have you given any money to False Witness, Inc.? For if you have, all is lost indeed!
Understand, my dear sir, that not only do you sully the whole fabric of British justice by suggesting that we employ these people; you gravely endanger your case, as well. The fabric of British justice has been sullied, and dry-cleaned, many times; like an Oriental rug, it shows only the very largest stains; but there is not a judge on the bench in this country who does not know every employee of False Witness, Inc., intimately. For years they have paraded in and out of the witness boxes of Canada dropping the wigs, false whiskers, wooden legs and other unconvincing paraphernalia with which they seek to disguise themselves, and their appearance is now a signal for derisive laughter in every court in the land.
False Witness, Inc. employs all the Canadian actors who are so bad that they cannot even get jobs with CBC-TV. Far better no witness than a False Witness.
I am shocked, sir, that you should think a firm such as ours would lend itself to underhand practice. We rely entirely upon the probity of the court, and the forensic brilliance of our barrister, Mr. Cicero Forcemeat. You will understand the unique distinction attaching to Mr. Forcemeat when I tell you that he is one of the half-dozen lawyers in the country who is not a Q.C.
And if we feel that the support of expert testimony is required, we know where to get it without resort to the broken-down dialect comedians who work for False Witness, Inc.
Yours chidingly,
Mordecai Mouseman
(for Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat).
*
• PENSÉES DE MARCHBANKS •
CAUSE AND EFFECT / The wonders of science will never cease to stagger me. A friend of mine possesses a large powerful dog, so that I rarely go to his house, but today I met him on the street. He told me that he was well, “And Schneider is completely himself again, too,” he added. (Schneider is the dog.) I enquired politely what had ailed Schneider, though in my inmost heart I cared little. “Poor fellow went all to pieces a few weeks ago,” said my friend; “completely forgot his house-training. It was terrible. He knew it was wrong, and he looked ashamed—you know what an expressive face Schneider has—but didn’t seem to be able to help himself. With a big dog, you know, that’s serious. The wife began to resent Schneider. Said either one or other of them would have to go. Tried to get Schneider to wear diapers, but other dogs laughed at him. So I took him to the vet. Vet said, ‘That’s easy,’ and washed some big lumps of wax out of Schneider’s ears. ‘Now he’ll be all right,’ said the vet, and sure enough, he is. House-broken as a lamb. Schneider happy; wife happy; wonderful!” Is there a lesson here for the parents of small children?
FRIGID BOON / The modern enthusiasm for the deep-freeze interests me, but I am not in the forefront of the movement, for I have observed that quite a lot of frozen food has a taste of brown paper, and is not always completely unfrozen. I lost my appetite for snow and ice when I was a boy. But I feel that the real possibilities of the deep-freeze technique have not been explored. If it can halt decay and arrest all bodily processes, why can the machine not be used as a baby-tender? Consider: a week-end is being planned, and parents are wondering what they can do with the infant; aha! pop it in the deep-freeze, and thaw it out on Monday morning, unharmed and the better for a thorough rest. Junior is behaving badly at school; the family psychiatrist says that he is going through “a phase”; put him in the deep-freeze until the phase has run its course. An expectant mother, who adores the memory of Queen Victoria, is told that her offspring will be born about May 10th; she deepfreezes herself until midnight, May 23rd, and little Victoria Alexandrina makes her debut, (perhaps a little stiff and blue) on the great Queen’s birthday. Deep-freezing may prove the boon of the age.
PANGS OF LEISURE / For the first time in several weeks I found myself this afternoon without anything to do. Of late I have suffered from congestion of the calendar; every hour of every day has been painfully crammed with duties and obligations. This afternoon I was free—free as a bird. But like a bewildered prisoner suddenly ejected from his dungeon I did not know how to use my liberty. I tried the TV, but the reception was terrible. I composed myself for a nap in my chair, but every five minutes or so I would leap up, wide awake, shouting, “All right! Don’t strike me! I’ll do it at once,”—a horrible reflection of my life for the past six weeks. I tried a few light household tasks, but they were like work, and I wanted to avoid work. I thought of going for a walk, but the outer world was an indecisive mess of hail, snow, rain and fog. I paced up and down, pretending that I was thinking, but soon tired of it. By four o’clock I was almost frantic with leisure; if I did not find some pleasant way of loafing soon, my afternoon would be gone. And sure enough, it did go, and the jaws of duty closed on me again. Oh, the pity of it!
*
• COMMUNIQUÉ (scrawled in chalk on my front door) •
To Big Chief Marchbanks.
How, Marchbanks:
In awful trouble, Marchbanks. Winter come soon. I got to get in jail. Been out two week now. No jail, no winter home. Two day ago I get drunk. Sick on cop. He mad. Ha, I think; jail for sure. But no. He take pants to cleaner and make me work cutting wood to pay for clean pants. Yesterday I throw brick at cop. Hit him hard. He jump. Ha, I think; jail now. But he say thanks pal; sergeant coming and you just wake me up in time. This one hell country, Marchbanks. Cops all too mean to put poor Indian in jail.
How, again,
Osceola Thunderbelly,
Chief of the Crokinoles.
*
• CULLED FROM THE APOPHTHEGMS OF WIZARD MARCHBANKS •
After 45 the differences which divide men from women are trivial compared with those which separate the wise from the unwise, the whole from the fragmented, the survivors from the fallen.
(November 23 to December 22)
SAGITTARIUS IS the sign of the Archer, the shooter of arrows or, if you prefer the phrase, the thrower of the harpoon. Your special gift is the knowledge of the power of the spoken word, and in particular the derogatory word. Persons of coarse fibre, born under this sign, may expend their gift in indiscriminate abuse, but the more intelligent Sagittarians husband their abilities and say no more than is absolutely necessary to discomfit or perhaps to explode their rivals. Those most highly developed of all are able to shoot their arrows (or throw their harpoons) with such grace that they seem to speak in positive praise of those they seek to destroy, as thus: “Yes, you have to admit that good old Taurus never does less than his best, even when he has completely missed the point;” or, “Virgo and I have been friends since we were girls, and if she can only overcome a few of those nervous little ticks she may expect to marry as well as anyone.” People born under this sign often go a long way, though seldom as far as their friends could wish.
• ENCHANTMENT-OF-THE-MONTH •
Your lucky colours give you a reasonably free hand in dress; they are black, blue, orange, sea-green, violet and purple. You have only one lucky flower, according to astrologers, and that is golde
nrod. If you suffer from hay fever your luck will, of course, consist in seeing as little of it as possible; it is always possible to discover something lucky about everything; astrology is the Pollyanna of the occult sciences. Your lucky gems are the turquoise, diamond, emerald, amethyst and carbuncle. If the word carbuncle conjures up memories of a painful lump some member of your family once had, be at peace; the jewel is the garnet, cut en cabochon. You will not, in all likelihood, have to worry too much about lucky gems for Sagittarians are thought to be romantic souls, and of such is the kingdom of the diamond merchants. You are virtually certain either to receive a diamond, or give one; when that important preliminary is over, you may set about acquiring your other lucky gems at your leisure.
• HEALTH HINTS FOR THOSE BORN UNDER SAGITTARIUS •
If you have an affliction, it is likely to smite you hip and thigh, for lumbago, sciatica and all the ills which make it hard to walk are considered by astrologers to have a particular fancy for people born at your time of the year. Painful as these troubles are, they are excellent themes for conversation, and if you have to do a lot of sitting, you will need something to talk about. You may discuss them freely without embarrassing anyone; talk about malignant or contagious diseases is likely to make your friends uneasy, but nobody has ever caught lumbago from another, and nobody ever thinks he will suffer from it until the moment when it strikes. Therefore your afflictions will serve to make you popular, for we always tend to like people who are less fortunate than ourselves, particularly when we are not called upon to do anything to lessen their misfortunes.
*
• SWEETLY SOLEMN THOUGHTS •
REMOVAL OF COUSINS / Listened to a family discussion among some people who were trying to decide the relationship to themselves of the children of a brother of their grandfather’s second wife. It was perfectly clear to me, but they made a sad hash of it. The Welsh and the Scots are the only people who really understand the fine points of relationship, and I think that the Welsh have a slight edge on the Scots in this matter. Indeed, I have given some thought to writing a book on the subject with a special Appendix dealing with the Removal of Cousins. The number of people, apparently well-educated and intelligent, who cannot distinguish between a Second Cousin and a First Cousin Once Removed, is staggering and reflects unpleasantly on our educational system. What these poor softies do when they get into the flood-tide of genealogy, with Intermarriage of Cousins and Collateral Cousinship In The Second Generation, I dread to imagine.
CRITICS CRITICIZED / I always read newspaper criticisms of concerts I have attended, but often I wonder if the critic and I can have been at the same affair. It is not their discontent that puzzles me; tastes differ, and after all a critic’s stock-in-trade is a finer sensibility than that of the vulgar herd. And I make allowances for the fact that going to concerts is work for a critic, and there are plenty of people who have lost all love for the work by which they get their bread. No, it is the way most of them write that stuns me. They attempt to deal with the performances of artists who have spent not less than ten years acquiring insight and a formidable technique, in a maimed and cretinous prose which could not possibly give anybody any impression except one of confusion and depleted vitality. They are poor grammarians, and their vocabularies are tawdry. It is hard enough to interpret one art in terms of another under the best of circumstances, but when the critic has not understood that writing also is an art, his criticism becomes embarrassing self-portraiture.
RESTAURANT COWARDICE / What is wrong with me? I seem to be the sort of man whom waiters immediately put at a table near the kitchen which smells of other people’s food, or in a draught, or too near the orchestra, or someplace where nobody wants to sit. If anything is spilled, it is mine; if anything spilled is scraped up from the floor, and served with carpet-fluff in it, it is mine. Am I so broken a creature that I fear to make a row in a restaurant? Well, all the evidence points in that direction. I am even so base that I lack the courage to refuse when the waiter suggests that I eat something which I do not want. This evening, for instance, I was thus dragooned into eating a Greek sweetmeat called Baclava; it tasted like a Bible printed on India paper which had been thoroughly soaked in honey, and took just as long to eat. When I had chewed my way down to Revelation the waiter asked me if I had enjoyed it and I, spiritless wretch, managed to nod.
*
• FROM THE MARCHBANKS MUNIMENTS •
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear and Valued Customer:
With a sensation of sick shock we find that you have not yet been in to do your Xmas shopping. Already the best of our stock is picked over and unless you hurry! Hurry!! HURRY!!! you will miss out on the finest array of Xmas yummies of all kinds that it has ever been our privilege and pleasure to stock.
Everything that you could possibly wish to give to a relative is to be found in our Pharmacy Department, and may be purchased by presenting a doctor’s prescription. Many goods in this line may be secured by signing a simple statement that you want to poison a dog.
In our Jewellery displays we have every sort of simulated gem with which husband or lover could wish to simulate affection.
In our Gigantic Kiddyland we have no less than three Santa Clauses, which avoids much of the queuing to shake hands with the genial saint which has caused irritation among busy tots at past Christmases.
You owe it to yourself to do your Christmas shopping RIGHT NOW. Stop owing it to yourself. Owe it to us.
J. Button Hook
(For the Bon Ton Elite Shoppery)
*
To the Rev. Simon Goaste, B.D.
Dear Rector:
I suppose you have observed, in the course of your professional duties, the sad decline of literary exuberance in the writing of epitaphs? The modern epitaph is hardly worthy of the name, when one compares it with the great epitaph-writing of the eighteenth century.
Because I do not wish to be slighted on my tombstone, I am sending to you herewith my own epitaph, in order that you may circumvent any of my descendants or executors who want to do the thing on the cheap after I am gone.
(THE FULL ARMORIAL BEARINGS of the Marchbanks family)
Beneath this stone
Lies all that was Mortal
Of one
Who, in this transitory Life
Seemed to sum up in himself all those
Virtues
Which we are taught to admire
but which, alas,
We rarely see in action.
Pause, Passer-By and Ponder:
This man, beside an ample fortune for
Those Left to Mourn Him
Leaves a sum in trust to provide
Every child in this Parish
With copies of his own works
Durably bound in waterproof material,
As well as a medal bearing the impress of his
Noble Countenance
on the front, and on its rear
These Words:
‘For Memorial Purposes only:
Not Negotiable as Currency.’
Drop a Tear and Pass On
Drawing Such Consolation As You Can
From the indisputable fact that
We Shall Not Look Upon His Like Again.
There. I think that covers the ground pretty thoroughly, and will gladden the heart of the stone-mason, if not of my relatives. Oh yes, and on the top of the stone, please, an effigy of my own head, with the left eyelid drooping slightly, as though in salute to the living.
Yours cheerily,
Samuel Marchbanks.
*
To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.
Dear Pil:
I have just been writing to Pastor Goaste about my epitaph. While I am clearing things up with regard to my funeral, permit me to inform you that among my gramophone records you will find one marked “For Pilgarlic only.” This is my funeral eulogy.
When my funeral is arranged, I want you to have a large public address system
in the church, and a record player. Then when the time comes for the usual address, play the record. You had better warn the parson beforehand, or there may be some competition.
The address is, I flatter myself, rather novel. I personally admonish several people who are sure to be at my funeral, and make a few remarks that I have been hankering to make all my life. I also give a brief estimate of my own character, which is more interesting than anything the parson can do, for it is founded on first-hand information. I expect that my action in this matter will set a new style.
Yours gaily,
Sam.
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To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Neighbour:
Aw, gee, I never thought you would mind me playing the hi-fi with my windows open! Aw, heck, I never thought you would resent a little thing like that skunk getting into your car! Not that I admit I did it. My lawyers told me that I shouldn’t. But I never thought you’d go to court about it. Gee, Marchbanks, you’re a cranky guy! Gee, haven’t you any spirit of give and take?
I’m just sick about the whole thing, and so is Lambie-Pie. She says you’re the worst crab in the world, but we ought to try to be friends with you because we’re neighbours, and after all, even you are human. She says we got to extend the Right Hand of Fellowship. Consider it extended. How about it, Marchbanks, old pal? By the way, I borrowed your lawn mower last month when you were away. I accidentally ran it over a big bolt somebody dropped on my lawn. I’ll bring it back just as soon as it is fixed. Or would you rather have it fixed to suit yourself?
Yours repentantly,
Dick Dandiprat.
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To Richard Dandiprat, ESQ.
Unspeakable Dandiprat:
I take note that you have extended the Right Hand of Fellowship. I have examined it. Take it back and wash it.