EPISTOLARY SINGULARITIES 



am sorry to say I did not get inflamation of your 

 show " would be entitled to congratulations if 

 he were taken literally, but experience tells us 

 that he meant something quite different to what 

 he wrote. The same remark applies to a news- 

 paper editor, who petitions for news of the show 

 " that we may editorially tootle a pleasing 

 melody." This is a less crude and much more 

 musical term than " boom," though, from what 

 I know of editors, I should say that a trumpet- 

 blast better represented their utterances than a 

 mere tootle. 



Another instance of an unintentional aptitude 

 to say what you don't mean is afforded by a letter 

 I have from a show steward of another Society. 

 I had asked him whether the supplying of refresh- 

 ments at his show by a certain lady caterer was 

 satisfactory. He replied that he did not patronize 

 that particular refreshment pavilion, but that 

 " Miss Brown always looked clean and was well- 

 filled whenever I passed." By omitting to say 

 that it was the pavilion he meant and not the 

 lady, he conveyed the impression that the latter 

 was not sparing of her ablutions, and showed 

 unmistakable signs of catering liberally for her 

 own interior. It reminds one of the elder Weller's 

 description of the " young 'ooman " whose tea- 

 libations were so lavish that, as he expressed it, 

 " she's a-swellin' wisibly afore my werry eyes." 



Shakespeare has told us that " one touch of 

 nature makes the whole world kin," and a letter 

 which once reached me supplied the touch. It 

 was the appeal of a young couple, the proud pro- 

 prietors of a baby in arms probably the first 



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