Leslie’s Dilemma

It adorns his wall like a museum piece, spaced there by itself, away from everything else in his den.  It’s not a complicated thing, he tells people who ask about it, he’s not a complicated guy.  Just his first one that he set long ago, framed in black plastic along with the check he received that he preserved instead of cashing.

Boy is he a liar sometimes, he thinks from his seat at his desk, the email from the paper open on his computer screen.  You don’t get much more complicated than Leslie M. Horwitt, last he checked he’d never even owned a TV.

His first name, for instance  — Leslie.  It’s a family name, or so he was told when he first asked about it, some great-grandfather who came over on a boat that no one remembers the name of.  He hated it when he was a child, everyone at school predictably made fun of him for it.  Leslie is a girl’s name, why do you have the same first name as Mrs. Cummings, the social studies teacher for the fifth-graders.  Shoves every now and then in the lunch line, the fat Bomke kid who liked to trip him on the stairway and then ask if “the little girl” needed help up.  Not too many punches thrown over it though, he shared enough candy and trading cards over the years to avoid things ever really getting physical.

But it’s complicated for sure, having what everyone thinks is a woman’s name, though even the number of women who use it now has dwindled.  He gets lots of mail from women’s organizations, requests to donate and such.  Dear Ms. Horwitt, or Mrs., as the case may be.  The IRS used to think Leslie was female, back when they wanted to conduct an audit the summer he turned twenty-seven.  That took several years to iron out — on account of an erroneous W2 form from his long-standing employer, Leslie had to hire an accountant who told him it might just be easier to live out his tax life as a capital F.  Their going forward solution?  To the bean-counters of the world, including at the paper, Leslie is L. Michael Horwitt, has been for the past twenty-five years, even if there are still a few women out there who use Leslie’s middle name.  Though to be fair he’s never actually met one, having only encountered the feminine Mike in old movies or the pulp fiction novels he likes to read.

Then there are all the smart-ass comments.  At cash registers where things aren’t yet automated, wink-wink nudge-nudge humor from guys with union tattoos.  And don’t get him started with his friends’ kids, they don’t understand it no matter what he might say.  Which is a good thing, he supposes, when they reach the age of understanding he finds them abruptly less interesting.

His last name is little better, he thinks, he doesn’t know anyone else who has it.  A complete work of fiction, or at least as creative as one might be.  From Horowitz to Horwitz to Horwitt in a little over twenty years, first an immigration card then a college diploma then a professional medical society.  Running from the past has got to be as complicated as it gets, that great-grandfather from the boat no one can remember still died a Jew.

But what’s hanging on his wall, that’s not complicated at all.  It’s an absolute beauty.  Fifteen by fifteen, with the twenty-five black squares like lily pads scattered on a pond’s surface.  Except these interruptions have the required diagonal symmetry, the vertical bar of five starting six squares in on the top, the flip side of the one starting ten squares in on the bottom.  Then a short horizontal block of three on row five with its mirror image on row ten, augmented by a couple dabs where needed at rows seven and nine, respectively.  All topped off by the staircase sloping elegantly down the middle, you could let your fingers do the walking along the words if you were so inclined.  Eight on the Beaufort scale, paired with number twenty-five on the Lakers, for example.  Gale.  Gail.  That last one had been a joke about his own name, when Leslie pointed it out to the old editor a few years later, they shared a good laugh.

The old editor, Leslie thinks as he reads the email for the third time this morning, now that guy was a peach.  Even if from time to time Leslie didn’t agree with his proposed changes.  Once they’d fought about whether Serbs really dwelled in the Southern Carpathians or not.  Leslie’s original clue had been “dwellers on the Morava river,” and the old editor had come back with the suggested “residents of Southern Carpathia.”  This had been in Leslie’s fourth setting, before he’d really had the confidence to insist that the old editor’s changes sometimes made things less clear.  It’s my way or the highway, Leslie would later learn to say, though the first time Leslie used the expression the old editor laughed and related how he’d employed that phrase himself once, in a themed-puzzle called “Rhyme Time.”

Leslie hates the themed puzzles, the contrivances they require.  But then Leslie’s a purist, which perhaps is why he’s having such troubles with the new editor and the email he’s been re-reading this morning.

As for the dispute about the Southern Carpathians, the old editor’s objection had been that there were two Morava rivers, the primary one being in the Czech Republic, with the lesser known one in Serbia.  And that the Balkan one was more properly known as the Great Morava river, which itself was made up of the South Morava and the West Morava.  The bottom line?  The old editor wasn’t sure any Serbs technically resided along the shores of the Morava.  Czechs and Slovaks and some Austrians certainly, but perhaps not Serbs, and the old editor was unwilling — simply unprepared, he’d said — to stake his and the paper’s reputation on such geographical uncertainty.  There would be letters and emails, so many emails, not to mention the blogs.  Nothing ever got past the paper’s devoted subscribers.

To this, Leslie responded that he thought the clue perfect precisely because there were two Morava rivers, and with the “S” in hand from the plural of seven down – “car returns” was the clue, with “repos” being the answer — he thought most people would think “Slavs” at first, thereby bogging them down.  Leslie loves the thought of bogging people down with just the right clue — sometimes he envisions them sitting at their kitchen tables with their coffees trying to figure out which U.S. vice-president’s name ends in “L” when really it ends in the much more common silent “E” because they’ve mistaken those Serbs for Slavs.

When Leslie first started setting, the books he read on the subject told him that the psychologists categorized this phenomenon under the broad umbrella of cognitive bias, something that doesn’t roll off the tongue.  Leslie prefers the more common word “misdirection,” which he thinks is fairer anyway.  It’s ok to try to baffle puzzlers with misdirection, it isn’t so different than any other transaction.  You don’t tell the used car dealer you really like the yellow hot rod in the corner if you want to get a fair price, right?  But cognitive bias?  That has the whiff of foul play, engaging in the purely psychological Leslie would just as soon leave for the lawyers.

Lawyers, he thinks, perhaps he ought to consult one about this email.  None of this is probably important enough to commit fraud after all, or whatever people might call it.  At least it shouldn’t be.

The resolution of the precise residence of those Serbs didn’t require a lawyer — though, on reflection, perhaps the old editor would have been better off talking to one.  Instead, he just made what he called an “executive decision,” and told Leslie to agree to the change if he wanted the check in the mail.  So Leslie acquiesced, the hundred and fifty bucks the paper was paying back then wasn’t something to turn your nose up at, albeit not without firing off a parting shot to preserve his position.  “I think you’ll find that the maps of the Carpathians are just too inconsistent for your alternative to work but I acknowledge your right to make the change,” Leslie wrote the old editor.  To which the reply came in swiftly, if somewhat blandly: “Leslie.  Sometimes you can be just a bit difficult.”

Difficult.  Complicated.  What’s really the difference.

A week later, after publication, Leslie had to confess being pleased when he saw in one of the blogs several people flagging that particular clue for opprobrium, a word that is on Leslie’s list he keeps on a notepad by the side of his computer entitled: “Someday.”  Right next to the box of cheap Nicaraguan cigars, the contents of which Leslie lights up only when a setting is accepted.  As for “Someday,” that refers to the day Leslie creates a puzzle that uses the words or phrases on his running inventory in spectacular fashion, with clues that straddle the line between the properly devious and the outright unfair.  One of his favorites was the day he crossed “radar” off the list, with the clue “snow shower,” though really his then girlfriend came up with that one when they were reading one night late in bed.  She agreed he could use it provided he bought her a new frying pan to make Leslie’s favorite lemon chiffon pancakes, something she took with her when she moved out three years ago last December.  She had the identical opinion as the old editor as it so happens — Leslie was too difficult, obtuse she’d said, call her if he could ever abide that love was more than a four-letter word with two nicely spaced vowels.

In the puzzle about the Serbs who did or didn’t reside along the Morava, Leslie had been able to strike two words from his ongoing list: amberjack and philatelist.  The former with the clue “orange sushi fish?”; the latter with “lover of the inverted Jenny,” though the old editor modified the latter to “inverted Jenny collector” in the book edition that included that particular puzzle.  He also changed the “Serbs” clue back to Leslie’s original suggestion without telling Leslie.  Leslie supposes that was the old editor’s right — Leslie doesn’t get anything extra when the paper puts out a book edition that includes one of his settings, but it would have been nice to receive an email nonetheless.  Especially since the book used Leslie’s bean counter name minus the “L.”  Michael Horwitt, it read, such that when he showed it to his friends most of them at first didn’t believe it was him.  You don’t get your name in the daily paper with your settings, the only place it shows up is when you’re in the books for good, and even then it’s pretty spotty.  So far, that book is the only place where Leslie’s name has appeared in print, misbegotten as it might have been.

Like he says to everyone, he isn’t a complicated guy.  He just wants recognition like anyone else.  At least the email is offering him that, even if it is a little sideways.

Some of the words on Leslie’s “Someday” list are complicated though, like “hypoallergenic” and “counterfactual,” but others are pretty simple, like “pudding” and “pickle,” he has a run of “P” words he’s wanted to use for quite some time now.  That’s because his “Someday” list has gotten pretty long in the last many months, Leslie has been going through a bit of a dry spell, the paper hasn’t purchased anything from him in over a year and a half.  Not since the new editor took over and put in place the new rules, the ones required by the paper’s harmlessly-named “standards and practices” division.

“Guidelines,” the new editor called them when he announced them, to make them sound less formal and rigid, though as with so many things in life he really meant the opposite.  If you break them, not only will your puzzle be rejected, it may be the case that you’ll never appear in the paper again.  Leslie violated them in the very first draft he sent the new editor, now 20 months hence.  Not out of malice or anything otherwise having to do with ill intention, but rather because he didn’t bother to read the new standards very carefully.  He was a veteran of over thirty puzzles in the paper by then, including several Sundays, surely he had earned some kind of status.

According to the email the new editor sent out upon his ascension, the guidelines were designed to broaden the audience for the paper’s puzzles, not everyone who might pick up a crossword necessarily wore eyeglasses or drove a gasoline-powered car.  The paper was also hopeful that the guidelines might entice new and younger setters, either now or in the future, ones who might know just a bit more about current social mores.  It’s a new world out there, the email read, and the paper was determined to do its part to help shape it.  Out were clues reliant on knowledge of the Roman Empire or movies from before 1975.  In were things like present-day commercial jingles and streaming services.  More sports, less literature.  And the Internet please, always account for the Internet, as if Leslie hadn’t already used gems like “chat room” and “bandwidth” and “firewall” years ago.

“Speaking platform” and “transmission measure” and “virus antidote?” had been the clues for those three, good ones all.  “Way to keep current, Leslie,” the old editor had remarked on approving one of them, though which one Leslie can’t say.

As for many of the old standbys, they had to go.  “RELee” was a traitor and a defender of slavery, so what if he had three E’s out of five, consider “Reese” from Reese’s peanut butter cups if you needed something along those lines.  And no more Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria, at least in relation to Columbus, many of the paper’s readers thought the man detestable to the extreme.  In order, “child (sp.),” “beer in Barcelona” and “coastal town,” if you must, though there was still arguably a “triggering” concern with the use of one of Columbus’s triumvirate, something the new editor said everyone needed to be sensitive to.

Finally there was the issue of gender, or sex as the IRS used to call it, something that makes Leslie smile as he considers the new editor’s email.  “Man,” as a general indicator of people was “problematic,” though this was not to be confused with “Isle of ____,” which was perfectly proper as a starter clue.  And be careful how you used the word “woman,” lest the paper receive backlash from the university crowd.  Most of these people didn’t actually undertake the daily puzzles, but they word-searched the paper’s offerings and frequently rattled their swords.

The old editor would have had none of this, Leslie thinks as he contemplates his reply to the email, he’s heard through the grapevine that the man took early retirement specifically because of the new guidelines.  When the old editor was in charge, the paper’s interferences were typically based on more decorous concerns, like the avoidance of the unintentionally scatological or pornographic, rather than the waffling dictates of convention.  And while it doesn’t bother Leslie that language is always evolving — that is part of the joy of setting — how so much of it suddenly became so controversial is beyond Leslie’s understanding.

Regrettable, Leslie thinks.  That’s the word the old editor would have used to describe it.  The whole situation was regrettable to the extreme, people would look back on this era and rue how they behaved, Leslie imagines.  Hopes, really.  He reaches over to his notepad and scribbles the word down on his list, lots of common letters in that one, he wonders why he hasn’t used it before.

Though of course, Leslie never actually met the old editor before his early retirement, they’d corresponded only electronically, so really Leslie can’t be 100 percent sure about him.  Those laughs Leslie likes to think he shared were written in emails, HA-HA, the old editor was fond of, always capitalized, along with the occasional LOL.  This distance between them, this anonymity, allowed the editor to make his corrections — his suggestions, he always called them — without causing too much offense.  Why the old editor only learned Leslie’s real first name after addressing him as Michael for the first couple of years.  Leslie had been afraid to make the correction until after his third setting, the one before the debate about the Serbs, on account of the solution to those problems with the IRS.  “It’s ok if we leave the checks alone, right?” Leslie wrote to the old editor after revealing he’d been operating under what he referred to as his “nom de guerre.”  “Of course,” replied the old editor.  “I won’t tell anyone.  And I think you’d agree that nom de plume is more appropriate, no?”

LOL, Leslie wrote back.

All this is so much different than with the new editor, he wants to get to know his setters he claimed in that opening email, who they really are is a high priority for the paper.  Ideally they should reflect society as a whole, just as their puzzles should.  No matter the obscurity of the act of setting, it appeals to perhaps one in fifty thousand.  The quirky and the anal-retentive, the kind of people standing in corners at parties, who in Leslie’s experience are almost always mathematically-inclined.  “On the spectrum,” Leslie might have described it jokingly a few years ago to give people a feel for it, a phrase that ex-girlfriend shouted at him not long before she was slamming his front door.

“You are so on the spectrum, Leslie!” he remembers her yelling at him, when he criticized those pancakes as having too little brown on them for the last time.  Now?  Leslie supposes people prefer the term “neurodivergent,” though he wonders how long that will stay in favor.  It’s like that great grandfather, he thinks as his fingers hover over the keyboard — everybody knew he was Jewish, he could have called himself O’Reilly and his taste for cheese Danishes would nonetheless have given him away.

Ironically, despite all the pablum about wanting to get to know his setters, the new editor used Leslie’s bean counter name in that opening missive, minus the “L” again —  “Dear Michael,” it began, despite Leslie’s previous email address beginning with “LES1234.”  The new editor then repeated the mistake in the email rejecting Leslie’s first draft in his new reign, which was far less cordial.  Downright rude, Leslie thought at the time.  Even though Leslie signed the message enclosing the draft “Yours sincerely, Leslie Horwitt,” the new editor obviously hadn’t gotten that far.

The email rejecting the draft attached a repeat copy of the new rules, with several of the nostrums underlined.  Leslie’s violations had been numerous, perhaps he was unaware of the paper’s new guidelines.  “Mrs.” was not permitted except in relation to someone (or something) known for it — think, Mrs. Minever, though that was too old a movie, better to use Mrs. Doubtfire — and Churchill could certainly not be unambiguously described as “heroic” as in “heroic painter and foe of Gandhi.”  And “Michael, let me offer you a piece of free advice.”  You really ought to think about incorporating a theme into the puzzle if you want to get it accepted under the new guidelines.  Without it, the puzzle you sent in is just too darn “difficult” — that word again — the paper is having great success in expanding its puzzles’ reach beyond the already committed.

These violations were serious apparently, so serious that when Leslie wrote the new editor back to apologize and enclosed a rejiggered draft, his email went unanswered, little more than an electronic vapor.  And then again when Leslie corresponded a week or so later, thinking perhaps the new editor had just been tied up with other things, as Leslie imagines new editors often are.  The only further correspondence he received from the paper about the draft was a form rejection letter.  Early on he’d gotten those from the old editor, then a depressing mimeographed page attached to a one-line email.  Now it’s all contained in a tidy message from the paper’s legal department with a lot of busy words, a couple of which Leslie recognizes as former denizens of his “Someday” list.

“Whereas,” as in “legal consideration” and “thereafter,” as in “close cousin of the great beyond?”  This last one the old editor accepted only after some good-natured cajoling and a promise from Leslie not to use legal terminology more than once every other setting.

Speaking of “thereafter,” after that first failed draft, Leslie tried six more times to satisfy the new editor, a run of failure unmatched since Leslie’s early days.  He even threw a themed puzzle in there, on the fifth additional attempt this past winter, a grand Sunday setting he suggested the paper could call “The Three Rs.”  The puzzle incorporated words with two Rs that replaced the letter before or after the trill with an additional, improper third R.  So, “curry” became “crrry” and “quarrel” became “quarrrl.”  Leslie cringes as he remembers that one, he hated sending it in so much.  Now he understands he’d become a bit desperate, and when winter passed into spring he forgave himself the momentary weakness.

But each time he tried again he received the now familiar email, the one written by the lawyers with their “ab initios” and “inter alias.”  Leslie has gotten so accustomed to it that, for kicks a couple weeks ago, he created a mini-puzzle for some avid friends using only words plucked from the lawyers’ rejection dispatch.  Just eight-by-eight, he dashed it off on a Saturday morning while sitting in his favorite coffee shop, enjoying their superior air conditioning.  And while it didn’t have a theme, he named the setting nonetheless: “Leslie’s Dilemma.”  When asked by his friends the meaning of the title, he coyly demurred, and said it was a private joke for himself, based on the literal meaning of the word — a choice between two equally bad alternatives — and not the more colloquial definition of merely a problem or a difficult situation.  Perhaps he would tell them about it one day, it couldn’t be all that important to anyone but him.

Because while Leslie doesn’t say it out loud, in his quiet moments he really does think of himself as stuck between a rock and a hard place, and hopefully not out of any self-pity.  Well, maybe just a little bit.  What he does isn’t good enough anymore, it seems, all his prior crafting and clueing doesn’t count, because it’s who he is that seems to matter.  And who he is is boring and older and Jewish and male.  Yesterday’s news, as it were.  And straight, too — or “cis” as the kids say — though he doesn’t think the paper knows anything about that.  In all these matters, these identifying characteristics, L. Michael is no different than Leslie M.

Stop it, he thinks, as he reads the email one last time.  You’ve had a good run.  There’s no sense fighting City Hall and all that.

Which is why the email this morning was such a shock, this Independence Day in the 25^th year of the new century.  Near the top of his scroll, just below the daily news note from the paper — he still subscribes, despite the recent poor treatment — was a message from the new editor with potential good news: with a few minor changes, his latest setting was accepted!  Seventh time lucky, or eighth, if you count that first failed draft.  The subject line of the email was the giveaway — at first, Leslie read no further than that.  “Suggested Edits,” it said, the same phraseology the old editor used when they were on the road to publication.  At least that hasn’t changed.

Those two words gave Leslie such a start, such a wonderful warm start, that he dismissed the whispers of doubt that immediately arose in his mind.  His hard work, his perseverance, had paid off!  It had simply taken some time for the new editor to get to know him, Leslie told himself, just as it had long ago with the old editor.  Leslie’s style was different for sure, it took some getting used to, most of his settings were suited only for Saturdays, even with all the changes the paper still holds those out as the most challenging.  Leslie congratulated himself —  he’d been right not to compromise, painful as the last 20 months might have been.  He and the new editor could be chums now, maybe they could even exchange a few of those HA-HAs.  Leslie’s Dilemma was thankfully no more.

But then there were those doubts, not so warm, not so wonderful, as Leslie tap-tap-tapped on his mouse without clicking it.  The email address, for example.  Staring at the promising two words, Leslie remembered he’d sent the new setting from his only recently-activated email account, the ”HORWITT789” one he’d switched to when his long-standing “LES1234” one had been hacked.  Fifty junk emails for every real one, he was still in the process of transferring everything over, the bank was giving him quite the hassle.  Something having to do with the trust he established to take care of his mother, a former grade-school English teacher who lives in an apartment across town that Leslie pays rent for.  The new editor probably had no idea the puzzle was from Leslie, particularly given his demonstrated impatience for reading things all the way through.  Though this might be a good thing — maybe the new editor had judged Leslie’s new puzzle purely on its merit, without any baggage from their prior interaction.  Yes, that was it, Leslie let himself think, the new editor had seen Leslie’s work with a clear eye, and the quality of the setting had inevitably shone through.

Though what about the guidelines and Leslie’s style?  Tap-tap-tap.  Tap-tap-tap.  Why would something so distinctive and apparently unsuitable for the new world the paper was trying to mold suddenly become acceptable?  Previously the editor had cautioned against the use of grammar clues, grammar being a hidebound concern, and Leslie’s puzzles always included at least one of them, in honor of his mother, sometimes she helps him out with them when he sees her on Sundays.  They’re his signature, his cameo, like Hitchcock in one of the great director’s movies.  Once you know what you’re looking for, you spot it right away.

And as for the rest of the guidelines?  If anything, Leslie suspected his violations of these had become more prevalent over time, that Sunday theme puzzle excepted, though because only the lawyers had responded to his last six submissions, he was just guessing about that.  An educated guess to be sure, but a guess all the same.

Then Leslie clicked open the message, and everything became clear.

“Dear Ms. Horwitt,” it began.  It got no better after that.

On behalf of the paper, I am delighted to receive a puzzle from a new setter.  As you may not have been aware, the paper has been seeking new, more diverse setters because of the different perspective they bring to our crossword puzzles.  You are the first new woman setter whose puzzle the staff and I believe warrants publication on a Saturday!  Quite a debut!  I particularly liked the lack of a theme – I’m an old school type and I love the challenge of a good, themeless setting, particularly given that themed puzzles are all the rage.

I have a few thoughts for you as we work towards publication.  A couple of your clues may run afoul of guidelines I’ve implemented in the last year and a half with the assistance of our standards and practices division.  Have you come across these?  No big deal if you haven’t, I can walk you through my proposed changes.  They are just guidelines after all, and we can make exceptions if you think they are key.  We’re all for independence here at the paper, and don’t want the guidelines interfering with the creative process.

In any event, please find attached my few minor mark-ups on your wonderful work.  If you have a problem with any of them, let me know and we can “talk” them through over email.  Or feel free to give me a call.  My number is at the bottom below my signature.

And finally, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but Leslie is such a lovely name – I hardly hear it anymore.  Maybe I’m being wistful, but I miss some of the old names.  Don’t get me wrong, all the new stuff is great, but it seems to me we’ve done too much throwing of the baby out with the bathwater in the last few years, myself included.

I really look forward to working with you.

Best regards,

When Leslie read the email for the first time he felt vaguely sick to his stomach, the second time even more so.  But now that he’s read it a third time and again a fourth, he doesn’t know whether to be angry or sad, or perhaps just to laugh.  He sits in his chair, the smoke from last night’s fireworks still acrid in his nostrils, and for the first time in his life, thinks he understands that quote from Shakespeare.  What’s in a name?  Everything apparently, because that’s all there is to go on so much of the time.  Ryan from the bank, Blake from Leslie’s insurance broker, Charlie from the alarm company.  Who are these people, man or woman, friend or potential foe?  Romeo and Juliet wasn’t a tragedy, it was a comedy, even if the cast back then was all male.  He thinks about that university crowd, the one the new editor is so afraid of, and wonders whether their insistence on pronouns isn’t the way to go.  But then if he’d put those in his signature he wouldn’t have the new editor’s email to respond to, though there is the matter of the man never reading that far.  He/him/his might have had no more effect than she/her/hers.

Leslie hits reply on the email, the blank space above the new editor’s message inviting Leslie’s rage or his sorrow, his passing thoughts of this very moment.  He’s going to tell the new editor the truth, the man has probably never heard that from any of his setters.  That is something reserved for the Leslies of the world, they are always getting a dose of truth-telling, even if you can’t tell whether they wore pants or skirts to their 10^th grade ball.  The new editor deserves to be hoisted on his own petard, a phrase that would work best in a Sunday puzzle, Leslie thinks.  Comeuppance seems far more suitable for the routine everyday.

But then Leslie opens the attachment to the email, his setting with the new editor’s mark-up.  Leslie’s eyes wander over the dozens of words, the black squares that border them arranged so exactly — the few suggestions from the new editor aren’t even all that bad.  Leslie looks over to his wall and then again back at his computer.  The setting is as beautiful as his first one, even more so, written as it was with no real hope of acceptance.  And the whole thing will go to waste, a trifle for Leslie’s friends, some of whom might remark with frowned faces at the injustice of the paper’s machinations.  The email Leslie has to write to the new editor probably won’t even warrant a reply, even from the lawyers, though Leslie is pretty sure the man will read this one all the way through.

And Leslie thinks: No.  No, no, no, no.

His fingers work fast, his mind too, he doesn’t want to lose his nerve.  No whereas’s or thereafter’s, just straightforward sentences with words of forthright declaration.  An ultimatum, rendered artful and spare, with only the smallest of lies.  A fib really, nothing more than that.  And while the paper might never forgive Leslie if they find out, he’s pretty sure God will, and that’s all that matters.  As would that accountant, the one with his recommendations about capital F’s, and that great-grandfather whose name Leslie shares.

Dear Sir or Madam, Leslie starts off, just to be safe.  And then the rest of it.

Thank you for your kind email.  I’m happy to have the paper publish my puzzle, but I must insist that you do so without any changes, though I did think your suggestions were generally speaking fine, and I’m open to making changes like them in the future.  I’m normally not a “my way or the highway” kind of person, but this particular puzzle was done in honor of a relative of mine, a male setter whose work used to appear in your publication regularly.  Perhaps you’ve heard of him?  Michael Horwitt?  He’s retired from setting now, but there’s no way I’d be here without his steadfast mentorship and commitment to the craft, and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least accord him this minor recognition.

He also told me what a great guy he thought the old editor was, but then I can’t really know about that having never met him.  I’m sure you feel like you have big enough shoes to fill already.

I trust the above condition is acceptable given the paper’s expressed desires to expand the horizons of its setters.  I’ve reviewed your guidelines, and it seems as there is nothing in my setting that is too objectionable.  I promise I will adhere to the guidelines strictly in the future, as it’s obvious they are something of great importance to you and the paper.

Yours sincerely,

Leslie Horwitt

P.S.  Thank you for your comments about my given name.  I hadn’t thought about it that way before — mostly in my life it’s been a source of complication, people sometimes not knowing at first whether I am a man or a woman.  Who knew it was such a treasure to some people?

Leslie reads his response to the new editor one more time before hitting send, then reaches over to his notepad and crosses the phrase “tongue-in-cheek” from his list, clue six down in this setting, “a mouthful of irony.”  HA-HA, he thinks.  LOL.  He leans back in his swivel chair, props his feet on his desk, and with a flourish he’s sure the old editor would have been proud of, lights up one of his victory cigars.

Learn more about Jonathan by clicking on his bio: https://thievingmagpie.org/jonathan-singer-bio/