My dear Sir,—You have in your entourage a cow that is causing me some annoyance. It is one of those red-and-white cows (an Angora or Pomeranian perhaps; I don't know the names of the different breeds, being a town mouse), and it has horns of which one is worn at an angle of fifteen or twenty degrees higher than the other. This may help you to identify it. It possesses, moreover, a moo which is a blend between a ship's siren and a taxicab's honk syringe. If you haven't heard either of these instruments you may take my word for them. Further, I think it may really assist you if I describe its tail. The last two feet of it have become unravelled, and the upper part is red, with a white patch where the tail is fastened on to the body.
It is only the moo part of the cow that is annoying me; I like the rest of it. I am engaged in writing a book on the Dynamic Force of Modern Art, and a solo on the Moo does not blend well with such labour as mine.
There are hens here at Hillcroft. This remark may seem irrelevant, but not if you read on. Every time one of these hens brings five-pence-halfpenny worth of egg into the world it makes a noise commensurate with this feat. But I contend that even if your cow laid an egg every time it moos (which it doesn't, so far as my survey reveals) its idiotic bellowing would still be out of all proportion to the achievement. Even milk at a shilling a quart scarcely justifies such assertiveness.
My friend Mr. Hobson may, of course, have offended the animal in question, but even so I cannot see why I should have to put up with its horrible revenge; which brings me to the real and ultimate reason for troubling you, and that is, to ask you if you will be so good as to tell the cow to desist, and, in case of its refusal, to remove it to other quarters. If the annoyance continues I cannot answer for the consequences.
Thanking you in anticipation,
I am, Yours faithfully,
Arthur K. Wilkinson.
The reply ran:—
Deer Sir,—i am not a scollard and can't understand more'n 'alf your letter if you don't lik my cow why not go back were you cum from i dunno what you mean by consequences but if you lay 'ands on my cow i'll 'ave the lor of you.
Yours obedient Henry Gibbs.