Foster Winthrop Higginbotham III



Excuse me, my dear lady, could you perhaps spare but a moment of your precious time for Fancy Man Rights? Your support would mean the world to fancy men everywhere, myself very much included.


Oh, how grand! Let me first properly thank you for deigning to stop at all. If you're anything like me, you no doubt have a social calendar simply packed with gala balls and the like! Now, if I could but impose a bit further, would you mind terribly making your mark on the 140-gram artisanal parchment paper affixed to my gilt-leaf-festooned rococo clipboard? By doing so, you'll receive the bimonthly American Fancy Man Association Newsletter, which I can assure you, my dear, is the activist newsletter you simply must be seen with this season.

Dear me, I seem to have misplaced my quill—Richmond! Another big, fluffy eiderdown quill! Ah, thank you, Richmond. Where are your manners? Please bow to the kind lady, Richmond. There's a good man. Now off you go, back to the motorcoach!


He's a very good valet, but a bit thick, I must confess.

Now then, since we're having such a grand little salon, just you and I, allow me to briefly inform you of the pitiable plight of many fancy men across this great nation. Were you aware that one in five fancy men is destitute to the point that he is forced to attend masquerades wearing the selfsame ascot he donned at the colonel's polo match just the previous weekend? Sadly, it very much takes the sport out of guessing who those fancy men are, hiding behind their peacock-feather masks.


I can see your mouth is already quite agape with disbelief at such a grievous travesty, but I fear there is even more. Each year, dozens of nearsighted fancy men must squint painfully at the latest mounting of La bohème because they just cannot afford new platinum opera glasses with vulcanized rubber eyepieces. Oh, what an affront to basic dignity!

Now, now, madame, it's not as hopeless as it all seems. With no more than the mere monthly pittance of a ruby-encrusted signet ring—I'm sure you have just dozens strewn haphazardly on your solid cherrywood claw-foot vanity or one of your satin-topped ottomans—you yourself can help keep a fancy man adorned in the finest silk top hats and his nostrils filled with the redolent aromas of orchid nosegays. And all without forcing him to sell off any of his dozens of ivory-tipped mahogany canes just so he might continue to sup thrice daily on Cornish game hens, candied plums, succulent sweetbreads, and fizzy water!


You seem quite anxious to be on your way, so naturally, I wouldn't be so gauche as to force a gentlewoman of your standing to part with any more of her valuable time. Quite shortly you shall receive a missive from the American Fancy Man Association outlining much of what we've discussed here, carried to you, of course, by a black sicklebill bird-of-paradise.

So please, dear lady, do not forget to leave your sitting room window open and your crimson velvet drapes drawn! Good day!