My DEAREST J.J.,

Oh dear, oh dear! I am in SUCH a pickle! Do send word if you can lend me an ounce of your good sense and common advise over cable or by pigeon?

Tut tut,

Gatsby

Dearest friend of my heart,

But of course my council is yours! You needn’t even BEG permission to bend my considerable ear – merely query me with what concerns you, and my best summation is yours for the application.

Fondest cares,

J.J. Theramungo

J. Jasper Theramungo – VIA PIGEON POST
B 1/2 Wickerstone Lane
Upper Insmouth
Greater Britain

Jasper, old chum, you do my overtired heart a WORLD of good. You see, I am faced with the most curious of catastrophic conundrums! A fortnight past found me in my favourite chair ’round tea time, eating a delicious pheasant (just one, the doctor has been on my tail regarding a certain amount of pudge ’round my mid-section, you see), when a sudden commotion from the back veg garden startled me nearly onto the floor! When I had quite composed myself enough to peer from the kitchen window into the garden, I was flummoxed to discover a TERRIBLE wreckage between the chard and the first of the season’s pumpkins.

Outfitted in my tall boots and with only a large meat tenderizer to defend myself against whatever FOUL FOE foiled my fall planting schedule, I crept towards the smoking carnage that was once the most delicious of pumpkins. Oh sir, this tale grows stranger still!

Beneath what appeared to be a large, partially collapsed zeppelin of sorts, was the slight and quivering form of a lady! Yes, I was as shocked as you certainly must be! I will allow a moment to collect your thoughts…

Ahem. As I was saying, this lady was ENTIRELY in-swooned. Though her face still remained partially covered by one arm, I still took her to be the lovely and much fabled Lady Greta Pennyweather. THE Lady Greta – star of silent screen and muse of famed flautist Horatio Smythingworth – was quite sprawled beneath the crumpled remains of her infamous flying contraption, the R.S.S. Quiver.

Unable to rouse the Lady from her slumber with my strongest salts, I had no choice but to manually extract her from the wreck, and carry her to my home. Before you venture a guess, I was quite sure to enshroud my hands in my lavender kid-skin gloves. A gentleman does NOT touch any portion of an un-acquanticed gentlewoman, after all!

Lady Greta slept quite soundly for three days, fretfully calling out for her “dearest Snump” from time-to-time. When she awoke, she was perplexed by her surroundings, claiming no memory of even her own name (let alone her impressive performance of the titular character from 1927′s phenomenal Ophelia Fresco). Showing her the remains of the R.S.S. Quiver did not jar loose her missing memories, nor did wrapping her in the fine fur stole I found flung some distance from her crash. The only curious recollection she can muster – and it curiously only surfaces while dining on curd – is of a man chasing her in a dark alley. A man she calls H. She has also absolutely forbade me, through a great show of hysterics and manipulations, to contact Constable Humphries or the honorable Doctor Chiggles about this puzzling malady.

While I do not find the Lady’s company unpleasing, or her countenance unbecoming in the least,  a gentleman MUST rectify such bizarre and troubling facts… mustn’t he? So I turn to you, my DEAREST friend, for your council. How should good old GB proceed in such a curiously curious case?

With the greatest fidelity and highest esteem,

Gatsby

Sender’s Whereabouts: Closer than you think…

Missster Gatsby,

We hear you have rekindled waylaid plans to picnic on the moon. Let us assure you that any such plans are FOOLISH and FOOLHARDY. Esssspecially if they include advice or help from THERAMUNGO.

You haven’t heard from THERAMUNGO recently, have you?

WE THOUGHT NOT.

Watch your step, kind sir. Watch your sssstep.

Signed,

“Finch”

Dearest H.P.,

I was just cataloguing my memoirs (you know, that silly little project of mine?) and was recalling that lovely summer we spent back at St. Olaf’s back in ’12. Oh dearest, do you think me silly to invite you along on a little weekend jaunt I have planned a mere week from now? You recall our earlier date for a picnic on the MOON? Well, I think the time has come that we explore the idea of a mature love in just that very locale! Let me entice you yet again with the spread:

• 1 Italian Loaf (crusty-type)
• 3 pots of Jam (Strawberry, Plum and Blue)
• Jicama and other crudités (FRESH!)
• And assortment of savory pies (some with Ham)
• Buffalo Wings (with Caviar-chevre-cilantro dipping sauce)
• Limonade (corked!)
• Port and Sherry (3 kinds each!)

DO say yes! I have already begun to gather the pheasants for the wings, and you KNOW how troublesome plucking all those feathers is!

DO say yes – the craters are lovely this time of year…

Pip and Tut,

Gatsby

From:

Pliny (the Younger)
LXVII Oysterbath Way
Lower Triumphia
BCBG81

Do please release my hendecasyllables from their promise – they were guarantors to our friends for the apperance of your work, and every day brings in some new request and demand; so they now run the risk of being served with a writ to produce it. I know I am very slow to publish my own work, but you overdo even my doubts and hesitations. So bestir yourself, or else beware lest I drag those books out of you by the fury of my iambics, since my hendcasyllables failed to entice them with honeyed words! The work is already finished and perfect; revision will not give them further polish but only dull its freshness.

Please let me see your name published and hear that my friend’s books are being copied, read and sold. In view of our warm friendship, it is only fair that you should let me have the same pleasure from you as you enjoy in me.

Perturbed,

Pliny (the Younger)

Perturbed,

Pliny (the Younger)

My DEAR Pliny,

I’d rather appreciate if you refrain from sending these “helpful reminders” re: my memoirs. It is already quite difficult to produce a work of Quality and Substance with my rotten editor breathing down my neck (foul woman, quite unplesant and crass!), so I’d thank you to keep your trips of guilt and whimsy to yourself, thank you very much!

Adieu!

GB

P.S. Bridge on Tuesday? You bring the crusty loaves, this time!

Dearest Sir,

It was never my intention to have to write such an unseemly and unsavory a note, but the events of the past few days has forced my noble hand to act.

I attempted to assuage your desire for my Ward and Charge, Lady Featherbottom, when it became quite clear that you showed interest. However, I had underestimated the sway of Young Love, and my tactics were not bold enough to put forth a defense for your most gentlemanly affections.

You see, chap, the Lady is promised to another suitor – the venerable Sir William Plumenom. The pair were betrothed

Sir William Plumenom

whilst still in the nest, and his family is Most respectible in the line of shipping and recieving hazlenut imports. Your “love” – if one can call it that – simply cannot be.

It is most regretable that you had to find out in such a coarse and cruel fashion, but I sincerely hope you bear the La

dy no Ill Will. She is young, sir, and we both know ladies as protected and immature as she are not always aware of the sway they hold over us gents.

The pair are in my charge, and will be married in a mere week. The reception is at The Hall, should you feel so inclined to pay your resepects.

Best of luck to you in your amourous adventures,

Sir William Tendertoes III

P.S. I have enclosed one strand of paste-pearls you left behind the other eve.

c/o mayor@villetown.com

Dear SIR,

I am QUITE appalled at the form letters enclosed within your latest “attempt” at communication (if one can even CALL it that – which I cannot). As a loyal member of your citizenry – one, I might add, that is dwindling as turtles go on an orgiastic spree of consumption – it is my right duty to inform you that you are being quite the prig. Oh dear, oh dear, whatever have you reduced me to? I am INFLAMED with outrage, and you shall being hearing from both my physician (by way of a bill for my vapors) and my barrister (for undue emotionality and conflict).

Most UN Sincerely,

Gatsby

P.S. MY TRASH HAS NOT BEEN COLLECTED IN A FORTNIGHT!!!

Dear Constituant #9201,

We received your letter regarding concerns over neighborhood safety, but regret to inform you that we are unable to respond as requested due to lack of completed form 702B (in triplicate). As you are a regular taxpayer, we have included a complimentary form for future complaints. HOWEVER, should you feel compelled to make suggestions, please procure and use the appropriate form: 702A (in duplicate).

Best wishes and much luck in your future endeavors,

The Office of his Honor Mayor Oscar J. Thrumblood

Most HONORABLE Mayor Thrumblood,

I am writing as a GREATLY concerned citizen of our fair Villetown. One might say there could be no GREATER concerned body than I!

Lately, many a foul event has plagued our sleepy little hamlet: accursed Puffinry, upsetting run-ins with the YOUTH of neighboring Buffton, and now the savage killing of the young member of the Pidgewidge clan.

What plans have you and the council set forth to rectify these many signs that our little oasis in the modern world is being dragged down to the depths of probable ghetto? What assurances can you give me, landowner and upstanding citizen (who has voted for you in 46 of the past 47  electoral events*) that anything will be done to restore safety?

Pip & Tut to YOU, Sir!

Gatsby

* Gatsby was ill during election 47 with a most severe flair-up of THE GOUT, and therefore was unable to make it to the polling place.

To ONE Ms. J. Quealy,

I was having a lovely bowl of porridge this morning, topped with bits of banana (just as I always like it), when one of those blasted puffins that shares my lane interrupted my solitude by sending me 40 copies of an electronic mail forward. What, you ask, was the subject of this intrusive electronic onslaught? Well, Madame, it was an article in some so-called “newspaper” from your fair country that proudly announced your successful initiative to map “pest rabbits.”

Appalling, APPALLING!

Pure, unadulterated, evil.

Among other insults, your website features incendiary polls that suggest we rabbit fellows do such things as “attract foxes and cats,” and “eat out native bushland.” I am not even entirely certain what that last one means, but I suspect it is HIGHLY slanderous and inappropriate. Then there is the matter of this highly offensive little limerick. Do you not get tired of spreading prejudice and hatred about our kind?

Having traveled several times to your fair country, I feel as if my tourism dollars have been funneled into this hate crime initiative without my consent! What recourse is there for an educated rabbit fellow who can nary help his uneducated cousins down-under, left to the mercy of angry backbush farmers grasping their pitchforks and total lack of iambic pentameter?!

A fine citizen, a dear friend.

To remedy this matter, I am dispatching my good Aussie chum, Jerry Wombat (aka Jerry Two-Stones), to serve as my proxy in negotiations herewith. Yes, yes, you are correct in thinking that Jerry Wombat (aka Jerry Two-Stones) is THAT Jerry Wombat (aka Jerry Two-Stones), but rest assured that time has mellowed the brute and he hardly ever “knocks an average-sized man over, his sharp teeth and powerful jaws resulting in severe wounds.” Well, hardly ever. And when I think on it, it seems Jerry might have been the victim of the same Aussie-Human slander that we lapin-folk find ourselves subject to. Troubling times, indeed!

I will await  a formal apology, which I would expect filled out in triplicate, with all the appropriate seals and insignia necessary to make it binding and legal. Tut tut!

With high hopes and sincere intent,

Gatsby

p.s. How Burrumbuttock Topped the Score!? Uncouth, uncouth!