“It has given the first officer, Mr. Henkleman, the ‘jimmies.’ Mr. Weeks, the second officer, joins me in expressing his appreciation of your efforts, and wishes me to say to you that he will gladly do anything in his power to further the interests of your publication.... Our mess boy says you ought to be arrested. You see, he stole some time off to read Mr. Rud’s yarn. He was supposed to be on duty, but was found by the steward (his immediate superior) in an unused state room (where he thought he would be safe from discovery) while deep in the story. The steward threw the door open suddenly—just as the boy reached the climax—and I guess he thought one of Mr. Rud’s monsters had him!
“WEIRD TALES is doing good on board, too. We have had a little trouble in getting one hombre to respond quickly to fire and boat drill signal. Today the alarm was sounded while he was in the midst of a yarn, and, although his quarters are far removed from Assembly, he beat every mother’s son to the lifeboats. We have a cargo of gunpowder and dynamite on board, consigned to Vera Cruz, where this letter will be mailed, and that may have helped some, but I believe that your magazine was the prime impulse....”
There is a good deal more to the foregoing letter, but at least we’ve quoted enough to show that all on board the Yumuri, except the goat and cat, seem to be enjoying WEIRD TALES—and when the crew and officers are through with it they’ll probably throw it at the cat or feed it to the goat. Seafaring men, as a rule, are excellent judges of fiction; wherefore the praise of Third Officer Boone pleases us immensely.
Here’s a breezy digest of the March issue from George F. Morgan, 680 North Vine Street, Hazleton, Pennsylvania:
“Dear Editor of Hair-Exercising Tales: The other evening, while looking over some magazines at my favorite book store, I happened to notice your March issue of WEIRD TALES, and the title at once seemed to strike me as being something different, so I immediately bade a genuine American quarter good-by and took a copy along home with me. I wish to state right now that I got two-dimes-and-a-nickel’s worth of well-balanced thrills out of that issue and would be willing to pay the war tax on it also.
“‘The Dead Man’s Tale’ was real interesting, and it is only too true that stories of that type are nearly as scarce as the guinea pig’s tail. The terrible creature in ‘Ooze’ was as horrible if not worse than some of the snakes in home-made Booze. Dad lost two nights’ sleep trying to figure out what ‘The Thing of a Thousand Shapes’ could really be. Guess he’ll have to wait till April, like the rest of us poor guessers.
“‘The Mystery of Black Jean’ sure was a bear of a story, but it is sad that the notorious hero should end up in a lime factory. Uncle Mart (who works in the coal mines) read ‘The Grave,’ and it sure must have scared him, because he is now working outside in the weather. Baby let the rattle fall while Ma was reading ‘Hark! The Rattle!’ and it took all the smelling salts on hand to bring her to.
“It’s a good idea to have lots of lamps in the room before beginning a story like ‘The Ghost Guard,’ and be sure they are filled with a good grade of oil, ’cause if they should go out in the middle of such a story Lord only knows what would happen! Stories like ‘The Ghoul and the Corpse’ have the same effect on your back as twenty below zero. Ma read ‘Weaving Shadows’ out loud, and sister’s beau went home at ten-thirty. Sister wondered why he didn’t stay till twelve, as was his custom.
“Dad gave our copy of WEIRD TALES to the neighbor’s kids, and Mrs. Murphy is still wondering why they get the evening supply of coal up from the cellar so early.”
Quite a family affair, we’ll say; and (assuming that George isn’t kidding us) isn’t it amazing how much disturbance a single copy of W. T. can create in a peaceful neighborhood?