The Not At All Surprising Outcome of Booper O'Montauk's Loan Application

Arthur Higgins Moneybottom III
Loan Officer
4th Bank of Sand Patch Grade
Cumberland, Maryland

October 5th, 1937

Booper O'Montauk
The Woods
Near the Catoctin Tunnel, Maryland



Dear Mr. O'Montauk,

     I regret to inform you that this institution has denied your application for a loan in the amount of $125.  There are two reasons for this decision.

First, I must emphasize that neither your business plan nor your proposed product are to blame.  On the contrary, we have no doubt that the public would be willing to buy your "Fluff of Happiness."  However, the product sample which you provided was determined to be nothing more than ordinary pocket lint, albeit a very large and especially fluffy specimen.  It did not bring happiness to any of the bankers who handled it.  In fact, despite your claim that it would "stay happy, even when wet" proved untrue, as the fluff was found to rapidly dissolve when exposed to rain.  In time, with the proper improvements, your invention may yet be a successful product.  

However, I find some fault with your motives.  I appreciate that the untimely loss of your parents - one to a sink hole in the park, and the other to a brain injury resulting from the attack of an especially territorial and aggressive starling - must have been devastatingly traumatic for you.  

I am moved by your story of woe, of toil and travel along the hard road of the hobo, of shoeless winters and shadeless summers.
Further, I know all too well how consuming an unrequited love can be.  This young woman you describe so glowingly in your loan application is, as you pointed out, betrothed to a man of considerable means, a man beloved by all who know him, by all accounts, a good man.  So your plan to prove your worth, to outshine him by working harder, by bringing your "Fluff of Happiness" to the world, thereby stealing the attention and affections of his fiancée is, at best, misguided.  I cannot grant a loan in support of such an endeavor.

I do wish you the best of luck, young man.

Sincerely,

A.H. Moneybottom III


Another doubly-prompted post (triply-prompted, if you count the hobo name itself)!  This one combines the Studio 30 Plus prompt, "Fluff of Happiness," from The Innerzone's post BOYS with the Light and Shade Challenge prompt "Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove," a Terry Pratchett quote.