Dear Sir, - May I, through the medium of your columns, offer my grateful thanks to the many readers who have written to say such kind things not only about my latest work in the Xmas number, but also of the others of the same type which preceded it.
It is gratifying to learn that so many readers are able to find pleasure in these somewhat strange stories of mine, particularly the many charming one-legged lady readers whose interest in the stories is, actually, a very personal one.
I can't help feeling flattered, too, that so many readers ask for more stories in this vein, one writing from so far away as India. I can only assure your Indian reader, "Kirkie," and all the other charming people interested that I shall do my very best to please them in the future as well as I tried to do in the past.
As for "Kirkie's" query whether the story in the Xmas number was true or not - well, of course, the story was written as fiction, but it was mainly based on a substratum of truth I possess documentary evidence that a club such as was described in that story (as also in another story of mine that appeared in "London Life" - "At the Moignon d'Or" -) did actually exist on the Continent before the war. I don't know if any such clubs exist to-day, but I suspect they do.
I am personally acquainted with several very charming and pretty ladies who are quite "happy on one leg", and one, who enjoys life to the best without any legs at all! One very pretty girl in particular, who is a quite intimate friend of mine, has recently confessed that she finds an obvious, quite inexplicable pleasure in being one-legged, and has no desire to be otherwise than she is! I can say that she is the charming person of the heroines of all my stories.
All this may appear utterly incredible to many readers, but it is perfectly true all the same. And with that I must end, as I have run to greater lengths than I had intended.
With every wish for your continued success,
Yours faithfully,
Wallace Stort