egards to T. T.

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

Arthur Martin was the assistant treasurer for Lilliland. The one big responsibility that he had was to safeguard the official Lilliland emergency fund.

Arthur was the cousin of a Lilliland diplomat and was a middle-aged, very shy accountant. His office was in Lilliland Castle and during his lunch break he would often walk across the castle grounds to Castle Lake to feed the wildlife. It was rare to find a turtle in Lilliland but Arthur had befriended a turtle who he had named Tom Turtle.

There wasn’t too much for Arthur to do except to keep the Lilliland emergency fund located in a Swiss bank with a secret code number known only to Arthur. He was not allowed to write it down and had to keep it only in his memory. Arthur was worried about being forgetful when the emergency money was needed and that he would let everyone down.

One day in the castle Arthur was not found at his desk and a complete search of the castle did not reveal his whereabouts. Baron Von Lodge and his chief advisor, Professor Hamblin, were immediately notified of Arthur’s disappearance.

Hours later, a message was received at the castle that Arthur had been kidnapped and that the secret code for the Swiss bank account was required from him. Arthur was held in a cabin high in the Alpine Mountains where he was about to be beaten unless he received word from the Baron to release the account number. The kidnappers did not know that Arthur knew the number. Arthur convinced the kidnappers to let him send a message to the Baron to obtain the bank account number to ensure his release.

The note was written and delivered to the Baron. The last sentence of the letter seemed very strange to the Baron. It said, “Regards to T. T.” Both the Baron and Professor Hamblin did not know what that part of the message meant. Lady Angela of Alpine Castle, the Baron’s fiancée, was shown the letter and said, “T. T. was short for Tom Turtle, which was Arthur’s pet.”

When the turtle was brought to the castle for the Baron to see, it turned out that the Swiss bank account secret code number had been written on the turtle’s belly. The bank was quickly notified and the code was changed, so that the kidnappers would not have access to the money.

A return letter to the kidnappers gave the old code to the kidnappers upon Arthur’s release. When they tried to use the old code at the bank, they were arrested and brought to justice. This made everybody in Lilliland very happy.