Dear Worried . .

The usual prize of six guineas was offered for the original letter that might have prompted .`Miss Lonely Hearts' to publish this answer: '1 do not think that you did right. Would it not have been better to have told your employer and fiancé that the package only contained a cookery book, or did you deliberately engineer a misunderstanding?'

ALTHOUGH this competition was transparently flippant, there were a number of implied condi- tions which had to be satisfied. The reply which I gave could only have been prompted by an original letter which made direct reference to a fiancé, an employer and a package containing a cookery book. But underlying all this there must have been the naive inference that prompted 'Miss Lonely Hearts to include the last half-dozen words in her epistle; this was the red light that so many of you overlooked in spite of the fact that the usual word limit was intentionally in- - creased to give a little extra scope in this direction. Enough said!

What sort of actuarial assessment could pos- sibly be made of the world's 'Lonely Hearts' when they are called upon to deal with the Vera Mouses (Mice?) about us ; . so I just burst into hystrikes and howled and howled and the boss yelled clear out and send me a girl that isnt a lunatice '9 D. E. Harrison's 'Worried' managed quite nicely to get her cookery book mixed up with So You're Going to Have a Baby —this must be the sort of thing that prompts the - footnote about sending an addressed envelope for a personal reply. W. G. Daish's character rather artlessly bought her cookery book from some disreputable street-trader who was selling packages inscribed 'What Every Girl Should Know Before Marriage,' and we were off all over again. Anyway it served her right. To tell the truth 1 was tempted to introduce something a little less innocuous than a cookery book when I first drafted this competition; you cannot possibly know how relieved I am that I managed to restrain myself.

P. W. R. Foot nearly made the grade with a fairly straightforward story about the moron boy- friend that somehow got the impression that the package contained dangerous drugs; the entry had a nice topical reference to 'Alsatian Flue.' R. Kennard Davis was not up to his usual high standard but I must give him credit for one quite inconsequential sentence that seemed to harbour real pathos : 'I am twenty-nine, but don't look it.'

By popular acclaim the majority of correspon- dents who take advantage of the columns of 'those magazines' seem to be utterly illiterate; that is why J. A. Lindon earns a guinea and a half. Mrs. V. R. Ormerod also receives a guinea and a half because her entry has a ring of simple authenticity. L. S. C. gets one guinea for delivering the sort of rot (cowls and ventilators) that these competitions occasionally deserve, and to H. Hardman I award two guineas for satisfying all the conditions and me. Inners scored by those mentioned elsewhere, D. R. Peddy, Pibwob, Guy Hadley and Vera Telfer.

PRIZES

(H. HARDMAN)

Dear Miss Lonely Hearts,

Do help me. I am engaged to be married to a nice young man who is a painter, and I work for him as a model. In the summer my friend Mabel borrowed mum's cookery-book, and yesterday she sent it back to me care of Tom (my young man) in one of her firm's wrappers. Tom brought it to me with a face of thunder and said he never wanted to speak to me again. I did not say a word to him. I have my pride. Did I do right? You see, Mabel's firm publish Art Photos.

Yours sincerely,

APHRODITE (3. A. LINDON)

my boss and my boy friend are so tiresome being jealous of one another but true love dont pay the baker do it i mean i get good wages and little presents when so inclined and if i give the boss well you know when so inclined it aint often believe me cause its as well to keep him sort of urgent dont you think but i cant stand silly jealousy and if a girl starts acting sort of different and wearing loose puffed out dresses well thats her business aint it and if men dont speak out well they cant expect to learn much can they and if i powder a bit pale and ask for a fortnight off and a girl comes back looking slim again and with old missis beetons household management done up in brown paper what aunty lou was always wanting and if they ask whats in it and a girl says never you mind just a little unwanted something im getting rid of to a woman i know in golders green well thats her business aint it and sheed be right to let them think whatever they like to think dont you think

(MRS. V. R. ORMEROD)

Someone in the office discovered there was a novelist with my name and everybody thinks I'm her! I have been there a fortnight and have got engaged to a nice boy called Jack. Yesterday 1 came in with a cookery book in a parcel and one of the girls said in front of Jack and the boss, 'Your new book, I suppose,' and I said, 'Wouldn't you like to know?' Now my boss wants me to get another job, and I have a feeling that when Jack says nice things to me he is wondering what they will look like in print.

TROUBLED

Dear Hypatia,

Do help me!

I work in a sales office (chimney pots section) and have sensed that my principal, Mr. Thirp, is attracted to me. Little attentions—like holding open a door— tell a woman so much, and his emotion over the sunflowers which I presented to him on his birthday (I got the date from a passport in his blotter) was quite unmistakable.

Adrian, my fiance, works in the same office and is resentful. He says 1 encourage Mr. Thirp!

Yesterday, during the lunch-hour, 1 purchased a book on cookery and returned to the office with it. The 'phone was ringing in Mr. Thirp's room, so I took the call, placing the parcel beside me. A Man- chester customer named Darling was on the line. I noted the message; then Adrian knocked and walked in. I suppose I appeared to be placing the parcel on Mr. Thirp's desk, and Adrian was furious because 1 had written on it, `Darling. Man. Your offer accepted. Meet Thursday.'

Mr. Thirp returned, Adrian became abusive, and I just flew.

My fiance has been dismissed. Mr. Thirp has ignored the parcel. I'm transferred to Cowls and Ventilators. What would you do?

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 403 Set by Pibwob

Dictionaries furnish us with some surprising derivations, e.g., `Buccaneer' from Toucan,' a framework for broiling oxen. Competitors are invited, for the usual prize, to invent equally unlikely derivations for six of the following: Amazon, Blunderbuss, Curfew, Dairymaid, Flamingo, London, Mistletoe, Mushroom, Night- mare, Pedigree, Scapegoat, Whiskers. Limit 150 words in all.

Entries, addressed `Spectatoi Competition No. 403,' 99 Gower Street, London, WC1, by Novem- ber 12. Results on November 22. s. c.)