From the desk of Dr. G. Avalon
Our Lady of Mercy Hospital
Dear people of our fair city, it seems that the Tattler is showing a bit of malice. Could it be that Mayor Godenot, in one of his wiser moments, decided to implode your former quarters to make way for a badly needed Hospital? I will not lie, I do not miss my former neighbors, whose main pastime seemed to be accusing me of turning their editors into meat pies! Obviously Miss Weymann is around, and not a meat pie! After all, she did herself admit she would make a terrible ingredient for such.
But this is not about old discredited rumors, but new ones, namely the article by Jack Mondieu, about the incident involving Armand’s hearse, which slandered my medical skill and blamed it for a fire! Yes, Armand nobly used his carriage to get R. Beedit to me. After all, the Hospital was open. Yes, I did engage in an experimental therapy to revive Miss Beedit, who was mistaken for dead. However, the fireball should be blamed on the fact that the streetcar managed to hit us several times! You try doing surgery while being hit by a hunk of metal, which in turn scares the horses! It was like doing some Havana-style “Mambo” dance, with blades, and without the benefit of Rum and Coke!
As even Mr. Mondieu admitted, everyone was safe, including Miss Beedit. I dare say reviving someone from death should account for the medical treatment citizens will enjoy at Our Lady of Mercy. From being a cadaver to getting drunk at Armand’s within a half hour, that’s a good show, especially with that homicidal streetcar doing its best to return her (and all of us) to the land of the shade!
Oh, and while I am addressing rumors, yes, I was in an odd costume, namely the “Maleficent Witch,” one which had gotten me accolades at the soiree of Signora Bianca Solderini. I was entertaining a few sick children with it, and of course I did not have time to change. As to those who claim they heard odd noises and saw odd sights, I would say, get off the pipe, or at least switch to the milder forms of opium that Miss Hawksby seems to get.
It is a good thing I sent that old bird Avis Picayune to deliver this message to that rag. If I came in person, I would be tempted to introduce Jack Mondieu to the new surgery for mental illness, called a “lobotomy.” It is quite the vogue in Paris. I am sure it would improve his intelligence. By the way, since the Tattler is in my old building, aka the Montgolfier, I have one warning: that place has so many rats that even a fine mouser like Miss Weymann may go mad. Then again, at least someone at the Tattler would be doing something useful for this city!
Sincerely,
Dr. G. Avalon