“That is one unhappy dame,” said Old Tom.

When Sina told the ladies at Brookman’s that we had named Alice Madden “Crying Alice,” they approved. Then they told us her husband did maintenance for the Canadian Air Force’s special plane, the Argot, in Comox and called himself Fixing Bob, which made the nickname Crying Alice seem coincidentally but pleasingly mated. I thought perhaps all couples should have similarly paired nicknames. I tried out Old Tom and Tall Sina, both being one-syllable adjectives, but it didn’t work at all.

Anyhow, when Crying Alice entered the house wailing, Sina had been drafting her thirty-seventh letter to William Lyon Mackenzie King, the prime minister of Canada, begging him for the sake of the country to grow a mustache like his predecessor, Robert Borden. He was such a dish, she wrote. And you have such a baby face. I feel we would be taken more seriously on the international circuit … Was this the expression she wanted? Were there circuits in international politics? Oh well, let him figure it out. He should be able to—he was the prime minister, after all.

It seems to me that the public figures people most pay attention to all have mustaches. Look at Hitler. Look at Mussolini. Look at Franco. Mustaches all. I’m not saying you want to be like these men. I’m just saying it’s time that Canada got it together and distinguished itself, internationally speaking, and I fear we shall never be able to do it with a baby-faced prime minister. You were not my choice for prime minister. Your party (if I may be so bold as to tender an opinion) is all wet. But, nevertheless, now you are my prime minister and we must all just make the best of it. You obviously don’t think grooming matters, so I am here to tell you it does and to lend you a little practical advice. I hope you will take it in the spirit in which it is meant.

Yours sincerely,

Thomasina Whitekraft

P.S. I’m sure even the voters who voted for your party—of which, as I say, I am not one—probably wish you’d do something to appear a little less doughy.

She was mumbling this last sentence to herself as she went down the hall to answer the wail. The sentence didn’t sound quite right, so she was saying it out loud to herself, editing it. Even the voters who voted for your party? No, no, no, that’s repetitive. Even the citizens who voted for you? Why say “citizens”? I did not vote for you but if I had…? No, that’s all wrong. We don’t vote directly for our prime minister. And “doughy” is perhaps a little harsh. Accurate but harsh.

She was so preoccupied by this that she had forgotten why she’d walked to the front door and didn’t even notice Crying Alice standing in the front hall dripping tears all over the floor. Sina walked right around her to shut the door.