The Captain addresses and digresses
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Dear Mr. Mamar:
What a delight it was to receive your totally unsolicited
email.
Since you kindly took it upon yourself to tell me a bit of
your background, please allow an old man to burden you with a bit of his
curriculum vitae. I hope you
don’t mind, do you? From your
letter, you seem to be a likeable lad. You
remind me of someone I knew in the war, name of Muggles Malone.
Anyway, I’m digressing, aren’t I? The wife tells me it is one of my most annoying habits.
“When you get to be my age,” I tell her, “you’ve got to think
about as many things as possible. Could
be dead any minute.” She
doesn’t agree, but that’s women for you, I guess.
There I am digressing again.
Dreadful business about losing your father’s friend in
New York. I was lost in New York
once, but obviously didn’t die. Almost
died in Her Majesty’s Navy, during that little disquiet we had down in the
Falkland Islands. Our ship, the
frigate Bacardi, was hit by a French missile from some Argentinean dinghy.
To this day I don’t much like Frenchmen or Argentineans, I’m sure you
feel the same. The navy put me in
charge of a desk after that, but at least I was discharged with a suitable
pension.
Now I spend my days involved with the family business –
distilling rum. We make a good
product, if you don’t mind me saying so myself.
Forgive an old man’s overweening pride, but we named it after me –
Capt. Morgan. Perhaps you’ve
heard of it.
Now to the business at hand. That is a great deal of money, and your late father should be
proud to have a son who so diligently searches for an anonymous patron to help
him with his finances. I can see
that you are a trusting soul, and as a gesture of cross-Atlantic reciprocity and
mendacity, I will only require 10 per cent to handle any expenses on my end.
I hope you don’t think this is overly grasping of me.
I shall endeavor to fulfill your requests. What exactly do you need again?
Your humble servant,
Don Morgan, Captain (retired) Her Majesty’s Royal Navy