|THE interchange of letters of introduction between old friends, by
which valuable acquaintances are added to the list, is a great blessing,
and in good hands these letters have, no doubt, been the beginning
of many a warm friendship; but, like all other blessings, it has been
greatly abused. I have been the recipient of letters, presented by
tourists, which, it was easy to see, had been wrung from some sandbagged
friend of mine--letters with sobs between the lines, letters punctuated
with invisible signals, calling upon me to remember that the bearer had
looked over the writer's shoulder as each sentence grew into a polite
prevarication.
To those who are in the habit of giving hearty letters of introduction
and endorsement to casual acquaintances, I desire to say that I am
perfecting a system by which the drugged and kidnapped writer of a style
of assumed sincerity and bogus hilarity will be thoroughly protected.
Let me explain briefly and then illustrate my method.
A casual acquaintance, who has met you, say four or five times, and who
feels thoroughly intimate with you, calling you by the name that no
one uses but your wife, approaches you with an air of confidence
that betrays his utter ignorance of himself, and asks for a letter of
introduction (in the same serious vein in which one asks for a match).
You are already provided with my numbered Introductory Letter Pad. You
write the letter of introduction on a sheet numbered to correspond with
a letter of advice mailed simultaneously to the person who is to submit
to the letter of introduction.
For instance, a young man, inclined to be fresh, enters your office or
library and states that he is going abroad. He has learned that you are
intimate with Dom Pedro, of Brazil. Perhaps you have conveyed that idea
unintentionally while in the young man's presence at some time. So now
he asks the trifling favor of a letter of introduction to the Emperor.
He is going to see the President and Cabinet and the members of the
Supreme Court before he leaves this country, and when he goes to South
America he naturally wants to meet Dom Pedro.
So you fill out the right-hand end or coupon of the sheet as follows:
[International Introductory Letter System, Form Z 23.]
No. B 135,986.
New York, Dec. 25,1886.
Sir: You will please honor this letter of introduction in accordance
with the terms of a certain letter of advice numbered as above, and
bearing even date herewith, mailed to you this day, and oblige, Yours,
etc.,