Ella Minnow Pea: List 3

He brings, as well, the results of chemical analyses performed on slivers of the errant tiles—analyses which prove beyond doubt and wanton denial that the tiles are falling for the simple reason that they can no longer hold themselves to the bandiford.

He brings, as well, the results of chemical analyses performed on slivers of the errant tiles—analyses which prove beyond doubt and wanton denial that the tiles are falling for the simple reason that they can no longer hold themselves to the bandiford.

I seek your assistance, dearest cousin, in determining which of the pious five would be most open to reading Mr. Warren's report.

Late into the night have we searched our souls, into the wee smalls have we plumbed our hearts with profound and intensured moral rectilitude.

Late into the night have we searched our souls, into the wee smalls have we plumbed our hearts with profound and intensured moral rectilitude.

Because a formidable duty has been charged to us, an overtitious ask-me-now posed, yea posited, which we cannot in good conscience ignore.

Because a formidable duty has been charged to us, an overtitious ask-me-now posed, yea posited, which we cannot in good conscience ignore.

And in the answer, in the noble venture of compliance, our mission now comes to encompass the putting forth to all of you, the good people of this proud and independent island nation, the reasons behind what at times must seem a harsh and unwavering capitulation to the wishes of Almighty Nollop.

Some, including those malcontents and apostates who have since departed our shores, might wish to modify the word “wishes” in the previous paragraph by the term “perceived.”

As if everything passed down to you from Council Assembly has been based upon supposition—upon meandering hypothesis and amorphous conjecture.

As if everything passed down to you from Council Assembly has been based upon supposition—upon meandering hypothesis and amorphous conjecture.

The signs have been presented to us, and while it took us a while to ascertain the desired course rising from their assignment, we now, we are happy to say, and with only temporary delay, securely grasp and freely endorse without temperage these pathfinders dropped, literally, at our feet.

For those of you who desire explication, we offer the following ten salients...

Complacency is a destructive force, capable of ending through invidious stagnationality all that is good which we have created for ourselves here.

The falling tiles can represent only one thing: a challenge—a summons to bettering our lot in the face of such deleterious complacency, and in the concomitant presence of false contentment and rank self-indulgence.

The falling tiles can represent only one thing: a challenge—a summons to bettering our lot in the face of such deleterious complacency, and in the concomitant presence of false contentment and rank self-indulgence.

Interpretation of events in any other way represents heresy.

Heretics will be punished, as was, for example, Mr. Nollop's saucy stenographer, who was cashiered for flippantly announcing to her employer the ease with which she could, herself, create such a sentence as his.

There is no such thing as accident or misspeak, only grossly underapplied discoursal perspicacity, with unguarded exposure to distractional digression.

There is no such thing as accident or misspeak, only grossly underapplied discoursal perspicacity, with unguarded exposure to distractional digression.

Returning to the saucy secretary: she was given fair warning by Nollop that her insubordinate speech would not be tolerated.

That one of such intellectual inferiority could ever in a lifetime duplicate the work of Nollop was unfathomable, her claim hypercomical.

I am in receipt of your letter regarding my order of miniature moonshine vessels. (Note that I have no interest in violating your Island Council’s three recent statutes regarding alphabetical elision, and so we will continue to refer to the vessels as, simply, vessels.)

Given the marketability of your previous consignments, the 50 figure is much too low. Please deliver to my warehouse double that amount by December 1—in time for the Christmas market—and I will pay you an additional $5.00 per vessel, with a bonus of $550.00 for the effort.

The news of “D” is, alas, all too true. I dare not even contemplate the attendant ramifications.

At the risk of being too forthcoming with regard to the details of my present situation I should state that my wife has left me not only in the proximital sense, but in the marital sense as well.

I look forward to seeing you soon (in some milieu other than my store).

Last evening's meeting was a pyrrhic success. Pyrrhic in that we had to turn more away than we would have liked, lest we betray, by our sheer numbers, the purpose behind our assemblage.

You are right that Mr. Lyttle is the likeliest candidate from among the Pentapriests to see the chemists’ report, although I don’t trust any of the five to open their minds even a scintilla to such a pound-logical explanation for the tumbling of the tiles.

And Lyttle has been somewhat the taciturn rubber-stamper of late.

The tide which washes the shores of this beleaguered island can be depended upon to follow the moon’s directives from now until the death of the planet, but lovely storm tides—beautiful hurricane-force, beach-battering, dune grass-deracinating gales do strike our beaches now and then, and leave change in their wake.

The tide which washes the shores of this beleaguered island can be depended upon to follow the moon’s directives from now until the death of the planet, but lovely storm tides—beautiful hurricane-force, beach-battering, dune grass- deracinating gales do strike our beaches now and then, and leave change in their wake.

Have you not noticed the product of my decision to dribble this dreadful diatribe with as many uses of the doomed fourth letter as possible?

This constitutes, in my opinion, a significant crime, an egregious sin, and one humongolacity of a daunting challenge.

Not to mention the fact that he speaks with such a mellifluous Savannah-honey-voice that I come close to simply melting away each time he opens his mouth!

I must confess, as well, to being still in the thrall of two full glasses of Sonoma Cabernet.

For while arguable is the possibility that Nollop speaks to us postmortem—sans mortar as it were—the one thing that isn’t contestable, that rings with pure alloyless truth, is the last thing that left our venerable vocabularian’s mouth prior to his expiration: “Love one another, push the perimeter of this glorious language. Lastly, please show proper courtesy; open not your neighbor’s mail.”

Forty-eight hours hence you will present yourself to an officer of the L.E.B. at Town Center, there to choose between cephalo-stock or public flogging, as your use of the letter-combination at the close of the tertiary paragraph in your epistle to your sister contains not one employment of an illegum, but two.

We might note—to allay certain fears—that the assistant chief postal inspector may not upon Council behest report the content of anything he sees in the performance of his responsibilities.

There will be no censures or prosecutions for exercising one’s free speech rights in service to the laws of this nation, even if those rights entail criticism of the High Council.