The problem is, once you ask for an image (<img ...>), your browser suspects to receive an image (so not text). So you'll have to create an image containing the lines you want to show to your visitors. This can be tricky, yet not impossible :)

In this setup, you'll have to return an image, as explained above. You could create an image with Image::Magick. An other example for you (if you only want to return text) might be the use of Server Side Includes (SSI). The link will take you to an Apache doc, for I assume you use Apache.

HTH

I really do not want to incorporate cgi unless I have to.

You already do! ;)