From The Complete Works of Piers Q MacBean, volume 10, Correspondence
The Klibchuk Correspondence: MacBean's Reply
My esteemed Count Nikolaus,
I was honoured to receive your recent communication, and mortified to discover that I had (unwittingly I assure you) caused offence.
I regret, however, that I cannot arrange for the printed apology you clearly deserve, as I have broken off all relations with that publication. I am sure that you will understand. I too have my pride, and to be passed over in this competition in favour of clearly inferior compositions, one of which only reached the prescribed word count by virtue of a dubiously-placed hyphen, is an affront I cannot tolerate. The calendar of landscape photographs of the River Tay offered as a prize may be no more than a shoddy gimcrack, but it is rightfully mine, as any perceptive critic must agree, I have therefore closed the iron door on the Dundee Marmalade Review, and would not dignify them by an association with your distinguished name. I suggest that you too treat them with the contempt they deserve, and cancel your subscription, if you have one.
As to your question of how I would like it if you were to describe a macbean as a weird hat. My answer is that I should be delighted. I have long considered myself to be the epitome of the saying 'a man on top of his hat'. I feel that to be a hat on top of a man would constitute a bouleversement that might inject some long-overdue inspiration into my work, which, I confess, has become a trifle stale (or perhaps a stale trifle) lately.
I have learned from my attendance at moving picture shows, that 'freshmen' in American colleges are obliged to wear a species of headgear called a 'beanie'. This intelligence offered a tantalising glimpse of how it might be to be described as a weird hat – for these beanies are weird hats indeed. Alas, though, it is only a near-miss, but I live in hope that the question you pose in your letter adumbrates a more accurate compliment that might fulfil its promise.
I trust that this account will excuse my lamentable lapse in inadvertantly pouring scorn on the fine name of Klibchuk, and that you will be assured of my continuing respect for all those you bear it.
