Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack

by Robertson Davies

  Yours faithfully,

  Prudence Bunn.

  Now, Mr. Marchbanks, we cannot advise you, as your lawyers, to prefer a charge against Richard Dandiprat without further evidence to show that it was he who put the skunk in the car. My father, Mr. Jabez Mouseman, is at present unable to attend to business, as rheumatism and great age render him incapable. However, I have consulted our other partner, Mr. Cicero Forcemeat, who does all our court business and his report is as follows:

  Tell Mr. Marchbanks that unless we have something to pin the skunk to Dandiprat, we wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance in court.

  “Chinaman’s chance,” Mr. Marchbanks, is Law Latin signifying “slight likelihood of success.”

  Yours faithfully,

  Mordecai Mouseman

  (for Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat).

  *

  To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.

  Dear Pil:

  I am making a short stay in Wales with my Uncle Fortunatus before coming back to Canada, and to work. You have never been to Wales, I believe? A great country, and the people have immense charm. For some reason the English seem to think of the Welsh as rascals and cheats, and this unjust notion has taken hold in Canada. Of course some Welshmen are curmudgeons, but on the whole I think they are wonderfully high-spirited. As a matter of fact, the only man in medical history who died of joy was a native of the very district where I am now staying. His name was Edward Burton, and in 1558, when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, his own patriotism and the celebrations drove him into such a frenzy of delight that it killed him. He died while roaring with laughter, and uttering loyal yells.

  He was refused burial in the churchyard of St. Chad’s, in Shrewsbury. Presumably the authorities took the view that no real Christian can be as joyful as that, and didn’t want him making trouble among the glum ghosts. So he was buried at home. I would like to meet Burton in the hereafter, and ask whether the strange manner of his death caused him any trouble with St. Peter.

  From my bedroom window I can see the hill upon which Thomas Parr lived his uncommonly long life, from 1483 to 1635—152 years. This remarkable old party married for the first time when he was 80, and was made to do penance for adultery when he was over 100. Rubens painted his portrait when he was 140.

  I am not surprised that Parr refused to die: life here is too good to be given up—though I must leave soon.

  Yours,

  Sam.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Mr. Marchbanks:

  May I call upon you on Monday in order to borrow some books of reference of which I know you to be the possessor? I am about to begin work upon an historical study which I have long pondered, to be called The Rise, Decline and Fall of the Toothpick, with an Appendix on the Toothpick in Canadian Lumbering. Also, have you any old Toothpicks which I might have photographed for illustrations? My own forbears always used gold or silver toothpicks which they carried upon their watch chains. It occurs to me that someone of humbler birth, such as yourself, might have the wooden toothpicks I need.

  Yours in hope,

  Minerva Hawser.

  *

  To Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat.

  Dear Sirs:

  Are you men or mice? Of course we must take legal action against Dandiprat. I know he put the skunk in my car because I know Dandiprat, and it is just the sort of thing he would think of. I am amazed by Mr. Cicero Forcemeat’s suggestion that the case would not hold water in court. If Forcemeat wants watertight cases, he will not get them from me. A lawyer who cannot bridge a few unavoidable gaps in evidence is a disgrace to his profession. Now, think again gentlemen!

  Yours in expectation of fireworks,

  S. Marchbanks.

  *

  • FROM MY NOTEBOOKS •

  INTERIOR DECORATION / Had a nasty encounter with an interior decorator today. Showing me some rough cloth, he kept calling it “freezay,” and it was not for a while that I realized, with stupefaction, that he was talking about good old frieze, pronounced as in the folk-saying concerning the ill-fated brass monkey. He also showed me some furniture, and said that some of it was “Louis” and the rest was “Ompeer.” I quickly grasped the fact that the latter word was a fancy, frittered-French pronunciation of “Empire,” but I wondered what he meant by “Louis”? The French people managed, in their dishevelled history, to have no less than eighteen kings called Louis, and he gave no clue as to which one he meant. I can be patient with many sorts of nonsense, but the nonsense of decorators unseats my reason; they want to use my money to create some sort of uninhabitable hell, filled with furniture upon which I dare not sit, and daubed with colours which scald my eyeballs. They have a way, too, of describing bits of junk as “amusing,” and making electric lamps out of old chunks of trees and similar unlikely and essentially nasty materials. Better far the grotesqueries of my own taste than the fashionable foolishness of theirs.

  THE CAMERA CAN LIE / Assisted this afternoon at one of those meetings where a concert committee decides what musicians it will engage for its series next season. Having decided how much money we had to spend, we passed two happy hours figuring out whom we could get for it—Monsieur Strummo, who plays the piano with his hands and feet, and who wants $5000 to do it for an hour and a half, or Signor Thumbo, who plays the musical saw all night for $25; Madame Y, who had a wonderful voice 25 years ago, or Mademoiselle Z, who is expected to have a wonderful voice in a few years? As we pondered, I looked at the pictures of the artists in the catalogue which we used; what liars photographers are! There was a picture of a soprano, looking like a virgin of 17, whom I saw recently, with a neck like the bellows of an accordion, and bags under her eyes like golf balls. There was a tenor, showing his magnificent chest and leonine head, but omitting his legs, which are about ten inches long. Another tenor was shown with his eyes closed in ecstasy; when they are opened, I happen to know that one of them is a bad glass job which he made himself, from the bottom of a beer bottle. Ah, human vanity! Ah, photographic artifice!

  PERILS OF MUSEOLOGY / Visited the Royal Ontario Museum, and was concerned to notice that a lot of the stuffed animals are fading badly. The laborious researches of the Royal Society of Taxidermists, continued for over a century, has not yet discovered a way of preventing this deterioration, which can turn a beautifully striped tiger into something like a polar bear in ten or twelve years. Museums are by definition temples of probity, or the curators might touch up the animals with some of the preparations so lavishly advertised for fading hair. But if a Museum Director were to countenance such deceit he might be drummed out of the profession at the very next International Conference of Museologists. This is a dreadful ceremony, in which the offender, having been stripped naked, is locked into an Egyptian sarcophagus, upon the cover of which his former colleagues drop rare coins in an irregular rhythm, until at last he is released, raving mad, and good for nothing but light work as a Museum guard.

  *

  • FROM MY POST BOX •

  To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.

  Dear Pil:

  At last I am back in Canada. I flew home from Scotland. I made my way thither from Wales by two trains—the Flying Scot and the Creeping Scot. What a country Scotland is, and how wonderfully the characteristics of the countryside are repeated in the people! The British Isles is rich in eccentrics, and those of Scotland are among the most flavoursome. Consider those two wonderful 18th century Lords of Session—Lord Gardenstone, who always slept with his pet pig for warmth, and Lord Monboddo, who thought that all children were born with tails! What has Canada to show to equal them?

  I may tell you that as I made my way to Prestwick, I passed the Johnny Walker distillery, and the works of Shanks of Barr-head, the great makers of sanitary pottery. “The Alpha and Omega of many a good party,” said my companion, raising his hat respectfully.

  Yours as always,

  Sam.

  *

  To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ. />
  Dear Mr. Hydra:

  I am in bed with ’flu just now and my pyjamas are a dreadful nuisance; they creep up. A lady visited me yesterday, and when I mentioned this to her she said that she had the same trouble with her nightdresses.

  Then—in a flash!—inspiration came to me and I forthwith invented Marchbanks’ Nightwear Stirrup. This consists of two metal stirrups, to which stout elastic cords, with clamps, are attached. The wearer puts his feet in the stirrups, clamps the cords to the bottoms of his pyjamas (or the hem of her nightdress) and the device keeps the garment in place all night long.

  How does this appeal to you? As Preliminary Examiner for the Board of Patents and Copyrights, do you—as the current phrase is—go for it?

  Yours in breathless anticipation,

  Samuel Marchbanks.

  *

  To Solomon Muckbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Mr. Mackbonks:

  I was alarmed and displeased to receive a note saying that you are in bed with Flo, and as a servant of this Dominion I have no desire to enter into a correspondence with you so long as you occupy any irregular situation.

  The device which you describe—a Nightwear Stirrup—does not interest me, for in common with many Civil Servants of the better sort, I have employed a sleeping-bag for many years.

  Yours very conditionally,

  Haubergeon Hydra.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Honoured Sir:

  The tone of your last letter was very strong—very strong indeed. As your legal advisers, we must caution you against such layman’s phrases as “take the shirt off his back” and “make him eat crow,” when referring to a possible legal action. We lawyers do not like such expressions: they savour of violence.

  In our opinion, your case against Richard Dandiprat is uncommonly weak. You have only circumstantial evidence that he introduced a skunk into your car. Your suggestion that we should in some way bridge the gap between guesswork and certainty alarms us by its sinister implication.

  Lawyers do not like to go to court. Anything may happen in court. The magistrate may be a skunk-lover, or a card-companion of Dandiprat’s, or anything. Besides, courts are invariably draughty, and our court partner, Mr. Cicero Forcemeat, is trying to postpone catching his winter cold for as long as possible. We suggest that you empower us to seek a settlement with Dandiprat out of court. This is the proper legal way of doing business.

  Yours for caution,

  Mordecai Mouseman

  (for Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat).

  *

  To Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat.

  Dear Sirs:

  Your mealy-mouthed letter disgusts me! Settle out of court, indeed! What are you lawyers for, if not to go to court? Eh? Answer me, Mouseman! Don’t sit cringing there, in your stuffy office! Get on the job, man!

  What do I care for Cicero Forcemeat’s cold? If he catches cold in court I will personally send him a mustard plaster.

  Now, keep your temper, Mouseman, while I explain: you say that evidence is lacking that Dandiprat put the skunk in the car. I know that he did it; I can tell by the ugly leer he gives me whenever I see him, and by the way he pretends to sniff the air when he passes my house. If you want evidence, why don’t you send that sensible secretary of yours, Miss Prudence Bunn, to Dandiprat’s house, disguised as a government inspector, or a Hydro snooper, or something. Then when nobody is looking, she can nip upstairs, pinch one of Dandiprat’s handkerchiefs—an initialled one—and then we can say we found it at the scene of the crime.

  What you lawyers need is enterprise. I shouldn’t have to do all your thinking for you.

  Yours for brighter law,

  Samuel Marchbanks.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Sir:

  It has been brought to our attention that you have several times and in divers places alleged that our client, Richard Dandiprat, Esq., introduced a skunk into your motor vehicle and there induced, coerced or suborned the animal to misconduct itself in a characteristic manner. Should you persist in this allegation we shall take action against you for defamation.

  Yours,

  Craven and Raven,

  Attorneys.

  *

  To Mouseman, Mouseman and Forcemeat.

  Dear Mouseman:

  Now look what you have done! I am sending you a letter from Craven and Raven, a firm of cheap shysters who are Dandiprat’s lawyers, in which they threaten me with a libel action if I tell the truth about Dandiprat. Why don’t you get on the job and put Dandiprat in court for what he has done to me? I don’t want to be bothered with law: I just want Dandiprat thrown in the jug, where he belongs. Why don’t you do something.

  Yours passionately,

  S. Marchbanks.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear S.M.:

  I should have written to you, I know, but I have been browsing in Canadian history, turning up the oddest things. For instance, have you read Weld’s “Travels in Canada”? In his thirty-fifth letter there is this interesting passage: “It is notorious that towards one another the Indians are liberal in the extreme, and for ever ready to supply the deficiencies of their neighbours with any superfluities of their own. They have no idea of amassing wealth for themselves individually; and they wonder that persons can be found in any society so destitute of every generous sentiment, as to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and to live in ease and affluence regardless of the misery and wretchedness of members of the same community to which they themselves belong.”

  Obviously the Indians originated the welfare state, which we are now re-discovering for ourselves. And yet in spite of their enlightened economics the Indians seem to have felt the necessity, from time to time, of pounding, bashing, slicing and frying other Indians. A strange paradox, upon which I delight to ponder.

  Adieu,

  A. Pilgarlic.

  *

  To Raymond Cataplasm, M.D., F.R.C.P.

  Dear Dr. Cataplasm:

  Ever since the death of President Kennedy American physicians have declared that rocking chairs are good for the heart, the back, and for tension of all kinds. I bring this to your attention, so that you can buy up a lot of old rocking-chairs and sell them in your dispensary at a high price. I am sure that this theory is a correct one, for all my Canadian ancestors were exceptionally long-lived and they were all great rockers. Indeed, it was reckoned that my Great-Aunt Sophonisba, during her 98 years, rocked to the moon and back again, counting each rock of her chair as 24 inches of distance covered. On a carpet with a deep pile she could go right around a good-sized room in an hour.

  Do not let anyone persuade you that platform-rockers are healthy. Upon rising from a platform rocker you are likely to be kicked and severely hurt by the chair, which leaps from the ground in anger. I have seen frail and elderly people thrown down and trampled on by a platform rocker with strong springs.

  I hope that you will be wildly successful with this wonderful new cardiac therapy.

  Your perennial patient,

  S. Marchbanks.

  *

  To Mrs. Morrigan.

  My dear Mrs. Morrigan:

  Looking through the paper this morning I found an advertisement for a book which undertook to tell its readers how to be “mature.” “Maybe you are well-adjusted, but are you mature?” it asked.

  What do you suppose they mean by maturity? I think it is one of the most abused words of our time. So many people say, “He is mature,” when they should say, “He is resigned to failure,” or “His feelings are so blunted that nothing hurts him any more,” or “He has been dead for years, but he doesn’t know it.”

  I have never known anyone who was mature in every respect. In men and women whom I like, even the wisest of them, there is some strain of petulance, of caprice, of sensitive vanity—of the things which are thought to be signs of immaturity. And I would not sacrifice these endearin
g foibles for a chilly perfection.

  Your immature servant,

  Samuel Marchbanks.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Ignoring your rudeness in your last letter, I write to inform you that Outraged Womanhood is once more upon the march. You have heard (as who has not?) that a quarter-pint of rum has been added to the birthday cake of H.R.H. The Prince Edward Antony Richard Louis. Now I ask you, what will happen when that infant has eaten his piece of cake? Staggering, bleary-eyed, he will drive his kiddy-car recklessly around his nursery, his co-ordination reduced perhaps 30 per cent, until he maims his nurse. And what sort of example is that, I ask you, for the infants of the Empire? Rum in cake will lead to demands for rum-and-butter toffee, and then his little bootees will be firmly set upon the Road to Ruin.

  I enclose a protest for you to sign. If you do not sign it, never hope again to hear from

  Yours,

  (Mrs.) Kedijah Scissorbill.

  *

  To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.

  Dear Pil:

  I don’t suppose you have seen the movie of Madame Bovary? I beguiled an idle hour with it last night when some fragments appeared on TV, and was moved to reflect that there is something deeply phoney about American actors pretending to be Frenchmen. And when a French classic is translated into American all illusion of French atmosphere is lost. In this piece, for instance, Mme Bovary goes to her aristocratic lover and says:

  Mme Bovary: I must have 150,000 francs.

  Aristocratic Lover: Uh don’t have ut.

  Mme Bovary: Yuh don’t have ut?

  Aristocratic Lover: Naw, uh don’t have ut.

  Mme Bovary: (collapsing) Aw, yuh don’t have ut!

  Frankly this seems as un-French as if they had spoken with Scottish or Lancashire accents. There was a time when actors had a good clear speech of their own, which was not related to any special place and so was suitable for everything, but this excellent tradition was never incorporated in the movies. Ah, well—