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Mar. 22, 2008 Note: Recently while at an auction this author purchased a small trunk that held, among other things, letters from one Cornelius Crumbhole. Thinking that the entire Internet world should see these, I have decided to post a few of them here. Apparently Mr. Crumbhole was a London Merchant who specialized in buying and selling nails, screws, and other such fasteners. Of his merchant life, not much is known. Of his personal life and his friendship with one Tom Dimmington, the reader can be the judge. Letter dated 8/19/1797: Tom: I should have answered your letter immediately, but alas, I could not. Whether it was chance, or ill-fortune, or fate I do not know, but I was for good reason detained and prevented from writing to you. It seems that I stopped, two weeks ago yesterday, for tea at a local pub and, upon receiving my order (an order for hard boiled quail eggs and some oriental tea, quite simple really) the waiter was so struck by my request that he physically had to constrain himself from laughing. I could tell. And Tom, as you are well aware, I do not appreciate being the butt of any man's joke, private or not. Hence, I immediately turned quite red-faced and insisted upon his settling this matter with none other than a fist-fight. At this he laughed much more than he had before, and turning his back to me, he walked away. This, I thought was a mistake on his part. I took it as a chance to settle this now double-score. Immediately I sprang from my chair and, kicked the waiter in the arse. In retrospect, the old axiom is not entirely true that if one "kicks one's arse" that he has won the fight. Indeed, the waiter, whom I only later calculated as outweighing me by a full 60 pounds, not only kicked me in the arse, but kicked and slapped and punched me in almost every other part of my body as well. And he broke my arm. Actually, he broke both of my arms, Tom. And one of my legs. Anyway, Tom, this is precisely why I have not answered your recent letter in a timely fashion. Until Next Time, Cornelius Crumbhole Crumbhole Letter Dated 9/17/1797 Dear Tom, The little gentleman who, at the post office, took this humble letter from me, commented on the fact that I was, at the time of delivering it up for postage, staring at him with a sour look on my face. To this comment I was quite upset. While it may have been and probably was true that I had a sour look on my face, it was no business of the postman's, and certainly it was quite uncouth of him to notice. One could hardly have been ruder. Immediately upon his mentioning the look on my face, I told him that, as a public servant, a man of the post, discerning what my face did or did not look like was absolutely no business of his and it would have been much more fitting for him to have only discerned what the value of my postage stamp was, no more, no less. I do not think that I was wrong in pointing this out to him. In fact, Tom, it is a rare event when I feel that I am of unsound mind or inclined to poor judgment. I set the postman straight! I told him exactly what was what. Until Next Time, Cornelius P.S. Please excuse the blood stains on the envelope in which this letter came. ------------ Email Wesley Mills: Wesley.Mills@esc.edu Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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