Dear Sir, - I've started to write to you again, and I am also enclosing a drawing - for I still think that perhaps "London Life" readers may be interested in monopede stories, especially if they come from a girl monopede herself. Here is the story I promised to tell you in my last letter. It was like this.
One day while on holiday at a nearby holiday resort (I had gone down for the week-end, as a matter of fact), I decided to take myself, my crutches and my bathing things along to a secluded bay and have a dip. I should mention that I am an experienced swimmer, of course, and are more at home in the water, naturally, with my missing limb, than on land.
To cut a long story short, I bathed, leaving my clothes and towel hidden behind some furze bushes. But owing to the distance from the bushes to the water, I had to take my crutches down to the edge of the waves. I am quite unable (unlike many assertions of some of your readers) to balance for any time or hop on my remaining leg!
When I had swum some way out, I turned, and was treading water, when I saw a man hurry furtively to my crutches. He had appeared from nowhere, it seemed, but he must have watched me undress (the beast), and I smiled as I thought: Well, Mr. Peeping Tom, you won't find any money there. My clothes are well hidden. That's only a pair of wooden crutches."
But my smile changed into a look of horror as I saw this vile creature grab the crutches and run off with them, up a low cliff to the top, where he laid them down - quite out of my reach, as I am physically incapable of any climbing, of course. I shouted: "Bring my crutches back," but he took no notice, and just sat down beside them. So I swam as hard as I could for the shore and, reaching the beach, crawled out of the water on the hands and one knee.
Just as I sat upright on the sand, he started to come down to me - a nasty smirking, oily little man with little piggy eyes and an almost insane glitter in them. I realised that I was in a devil of a jam. I had chosen this cove, or bay, for its solitude (for I should feel embarrassed baring my stump before a crowd); my only means of movement, a pair of split-wood crutches, were out of reach. I could not get away except by going in the sea again, and by this time he was between me and the water. I did not stop to argue with him, but started to drag myself, by my arms, over the sand towards the sea. I was terribly frightened of what he was going to do to me. Every girl will realise just how I felt, I know.
I dragged myself - painfully - over a few yards of beach and then I stopped, as I realised that, laughing all over his face over my helplessness and futile efforts to escape, he was walking with me, keeping pace with slow, strolling strides.
I realised, too, that escaping by the sea was out of question. I could not stay in the water indefinitely without getting cramp and drowning. I could not swim for help, as it was much too far round the headland. I could not get more than a few inches away from this filthy little brute who had suddenly loosed all his evil intentions on me. Looking up at him as I lay, panting, on the sand, I burst into uncontrollable tears and begged him, promised him money, if he would give me back my crutches and let me go.
He stared vacantly and then said: "I will if you kiss me."
I shuddered as a dreadful feeling crept up my back. Was this a ruse to get near me? What other outrage was he planning? But I realised that I could do nothing but submit, and so I tearfully agreed. He bent down and ... what do you think? He gave me a neat little kiss ON THE FOREHEAD!
Then up the little cliff he run, brought back my crutches, raised his hat, said "Good afternoon" and ran out of sight into the woods.
I lifted myself on to my crutches, hastily dried and dressed and walked home as fast as my crutches would allow. I told the story to my landlady, swearing her to secrecy, and she told me that there was a mental colony near the bay, and that certain "cases" were allowed out.
That may sound all right - but I had such a fright, such a nightmarish few moments, that I have never bathed there since.
Yours truly,
Margaret.