Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 2 (1923-02).djvu/83

the above-mentioned feat (and my nose is none too Herculean) you may 'address me letters to the address below.'

"But, consigning all the preceding levity to its own particular hell, I shall hasten to thank you for your unprecedented attention to one in whose manly countenance, figuratively, the editorial hithertoo have been impolitely though no less repeatedly slammed.

"Now (and I confess to a certain premonition), I must close what, to you, I am certain has been an extremely incoherent epistle. I wrote it on the spur of the moment; directly after I read the Eyrie's first paragraph, and during the silent laughter thereby produced. I don't know whether you have ever read—or even heard of—Edgar Franklin's stories in the Argosy All-Story; but, anyhow, I was afforded—by that paragraph—more pleasure than ever I encountered in his stories. And Edgar Franklin slings wicked sarcasm!"

THE following interesting letter from Whitmore Anderson Gaydon of Selma, Alabama, though voting for "The Transparent Ghost," seems less concerned with that unique tale than with certain peculiarities of tales in general:

"Dear Sir: As we all seem to want to be a happy little family of 'Weirders' by all means let us have Mrs. Manzer's tale. But let me tell you what I object to. It is the fact that every time an author stops to get his breath he remarks that 'Mr. So-and-so SHRUGGED HIS SHOULDERS.' I fled the pages of the dry-as-dust literalists because that old bruised and bleeding phrase was driving me mad. I took up the reading of WEIRD TALES, thinking the originality of your publication would afford me measure of relief. But here the old grinning skeleton comes rattling its detestable way right into the midst of every story.

"Now, Mr. Editor, in the interest of harmony in the family, delete that phrase. Or at least vary it to read: 'Mr. X wiggled his right ear.' 'Mr. K. sneezed.' 'Mr. W's belch was accompanied by an audible grunt,' etc.

"I enjoyed 'The Phantom Violinist' more than any of the stories, probably from the fact that I knew how to appreciate it. As most of my prizes that I have won as a fiddler has been while seemingly under a mysterious outside Power. Playing by inspiration, as it were."

Dick Presley Tooker, author of