Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
On Signatures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Glossary
Summary
Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 2 November 1887.
Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, pp. 7–8).
Text: Civil and Military Gazette.
Notes: Unrecorded and unreprinted.
* Our correspondent's name is written “Anjuolin Ihadam.” But he seems to be an Englishman, and may possibly be styled Augustus Maclean by those who know him.
Sir, – The following is the kind of thing that greets me at the end of most of the letters which I daily receive:– “I have the honour to be,” &c. &c. followed by a design in ink which might be meant to represent three snakes’ tails and a set of triangles. “Very sincerely yours” – a felled fir-tree with a shower of chips about the stump. “Yours sincerely” – a Greek Theta, and a thing like a dead cat.
And that is one portion of my morning's dak. The snakes’ tails and triangles represent Lee-Scuppersley, who will live and die an official prig, under the delusion that he is over-worked. He is a small man, of no earthly consideration in the eyes of his Government or his friends; but were he a Lieutenant-Governor, his signature could not be more illegible. I scorn Lee-Scuppersley. I have a genial contempt for him. I would bonnet him if he were made Viceroy to-morrow. By what right does Lee-Scuppersley then vex me with hieroglyphs? Because he is a beast.
The felled fir-tree with the chips, is new to me. It may be McCormac's name; but when he last wrote to me, his device was a house on fire with rolling clouds behind. McCormac is a firebrand in the Commission, and the totem is not inappropriate, though puzzling to strangers. Withershin again used to draw a big black fuzzy caterpillar on a boundless prairie – he was a slow worker, was Withershin. Perhaps he has sent the fir-tree to show that he has come to grief at last. But the style of the letter is not Withershin's. I can read every single word except the signature. The writer wants to know when I am “going to look him up.” Now I promised on my journey to see Blougram; but Blougram never uses R.A. note-paper. Besides I can sometimes decipher his signature – the post and rail, not the shovel and dustpan one.
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- The Cause of Humanity and Other StoriesThe Cause of Humanity and Other Stories Uncollected Prose Fictions, pp. 154 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018