Dear Mr Laughton,
I refer back to a article what was printed in your magazine I think it was yesterday about an American business called "Connect-A-Cat".
Straight away I shouted out. What I shouted out was "Dilys", what is my wife of these years. She came in holding a goat what she had been brushing down. We keep Dutch and Finnish Landrace. We used to of had a collection of the Toggenburgs but felt that they did not flourish in our lowland home.
"What now?" she said. "Put down the goat and hearken unto me", I cried, spitting out a mouthful of black olive tapenade. "Oh, and take the goat outside, you should not bring them within door, they are unclean."
She bridled, still clutching the goat unto her. "And if I were not dealing with these goat, then who would, pray?" she asked, not without irony. "For, as far as you are concerned - which is not much - you do not proffer so much as a hand's turn. You prefer to sit there nibbling mediterranean titbits and reading foolish magazines."
"But soft, woman", I enjoined, pushing away a breadstick in consternation. "Lest you think I am a mere idler and a pursuer of mere fol-de-rol and riddle-me-ree of an afternoon whilst you have your hands filled with the goats, lest you harbour these concerns unmolested, let me tell you what it is I have discovered here."
"Nay, husband", came her rejoinder, putting down the goat onto the black walnut parquet flooring. How the goat skidded, its legs went in all directions. "Nay husband", she repeated, trying to help the goat to stand up, "Nay..."
I interrupted her in the midst of her diatribe. "No, listen, Mistress", I entreated. "I have been reading in this here very magazine which is an electronical one, I have been reading, of a certain American company what has recently relocated from Connecticut to Rhode Island."
"Surely", said she, "this is of small moment to me. For what have companies relocating within the New England sector to tell us, regarding the question of goat husbandry or lounging with mediterranean morsels?"
"Verily, your sarcasm does you but little credit. Indeed, it becomes you not", I was at pains to utter. "For what of our talk, last week, on the matter of cats? Did you not say that you were thinking along the lines of a cat for the house?"
"Ah, but you have misconstrued my intentions", quoth my wife, continuing to grapple with the skidding goat. "If I said the word 'cat', it was but a symbol of the.......
(Contd. on page 165)
Dear Mr Lawson,
I write with reference to the article in your magazine on the subject of "Connect-A-Cat". My wife and I both read with interest this article, which purported to tell a tale.
The tale it purported to tell concerned - I need hardly tell you, who would have edited and vetted (no pun intended) the said piece before publicification - what it purported, but your readers may be of interest.
What it purported to tell, talewise, was this. It purported to tell a tale. The tale it purported to tell was this.
It told a tale, which told of the Bellhousings, who had set up a Connect-A-Cat business to set up various cats so they could meet friends and such. It told us how this Bellhousing man and his wife had set up this business which was successful, and they had many cats on their database who they connected with other cats in search of companionship.
Let me tell you that my wife and I regard this article with disdain.
For many years now, though not very much recently, on account of my wife's ear, nose and throat issues.......
(Contd. on page 77)
Dear Mr Luton,
with regard to the article in your magazine, I refer to the "Connect-A-Cat Cuts Connections With Connecticut" article, this was a load of old tripe.
I speak with the authority of expedience here, and am no idle well-wisher hurling unconsidered squibs at a passing bandwagon on market day.
I have objection to this article on several grounds, viz.:
- it makes no sense, in a business sense, for a business to leave a place where it is established and trading heavily upon the name of the place, for weaker climes, ie Rhode Island
- the idea that Mrs Bellhousing was going to start a chicken business to trade on the Rhode Island name is ludicrous and shows how weak the article is
- I have never visited Woonsocket, but if I had, and if I were a business-woman of that ilk, I would not combine a cat and a chicken business - it is like selling whelks in a perfumery, or having strong cheeses in a lingerie boutique, the one will surely militate against its companion
- I find the beginning, with the ginger cat looking in through the window, very unconvincing - yes, a cat will sit at a window, but as for staring in and eating tripes, well, it is without precedent, which hardly adds credit
- why were we given no examples of some of the cases where cats had been connected - this screaming vacancy is highly suspicious
But perhaps the most damning statistic concerns cats I have known of.
An erstwhile friend - let us call her Mrs Runcible - had a brace of siamese. She knitted them fine jackets to wear. She also knitted the identical jackets to donate to friends and their cats, which numbered the tabby, the marmalade, the pekin, and so forth.
Far from encouraging the cats to merge and be bosom companions, all this forcible ushering together merely seemed to drive the cats apart.
No more can you usher a cat into forced social activity than you can turn a pig in an alley or even an open field. Believe me, I have tried.
It was as if the little coats were repellant devices, and this is how I am sure an undertaking like Connect-A-Cat would be received by any cat of my acquaintance.
I also wish to draw attention to the article on the subject of mole-catchers and their gaiters. My Uncle Bertram.......
(Contd. on page 199)
we apologise for our inability to print the complete text of these letters, but owing to restrictive economic parameters, we have had to truncate them due to lack of space
