Room service? I wouldn't have thought you would have stooped so low so quickly. Especially being familiar with your, as you point out, famous "country cooking." In fact, I've been entertaining Susan with some of your best loved recipes... which she appears to enjoy as well. Of course, I can't do them justice, but who could. I'm also a little afraid to hear about your semi-violent encounter. A baseball bat? Very crude. I can assure you, my love, that nothing of that that I've seen could rise to threaten the wolf, but as we both know, that's only what's required to get by. I'm also surprised to hear how well you seem to be getting on in the city. It shouldn't interfere with our plans here, should it? I would hate to think that you were being dragged out into the isolated country on an estate far from the action. But that can wait; you must hear a fascinating story (yes, information is shared here in the country) about one of our old circle. Do you remember Edward McGill, dear? Of course you do--he was the absolutely awful person who talked your ear off about serial composition at that museum thinng last year. Ring a bell? Well, Sue saw him, and he has moved up considerably in the world. He had turned his almost always boring mastery of trivia into a relatively lucrative job in the back of one of the stodgy science museums which are always shifting their displays around. He's the shifter. Shifty. Well, he had quite a nice job with quite a nice salary. He had even convinced some poor creature that even an irksome bore was lovable. Of course, when he lost his job (under the most remarkable circumstances) she thought the better of it. Now, I can hear the pricking of the ears. "How," you ask "did the old slob lose his trivial position?" Well here it is: About three months ago when that big expedition came back from the old country (funny how we slip back into the colloquial when provided with any opportunity) they brought with them several specimens for the museum, some even alive. Some really marvelous pieces, really... you probably saw the sort of elephantine looking thing in the Sunday papers. Now a central item in Edward's display was a queer sort of deer. You remember deer, Philip, we've seen pictures of them in magazines. Now, of course, the deer is no special animal, but this was like nothing he had seen before. Edward had it fattened up for the big day, got it a nice collar and a rather large cage. He then saw to an expensive advertising campaign with signs and posters and radio business and all of that. The big day came and brought with it Edward's failure. The damn thing wasn't a deer at all, but rather a common, everyday, old country dog. A mangy one at that. Somehow, the poor fool had been duped into thinking he had something he most certainly did not. So, after all the smoked cleared out, Edward was asked to do the same. The dog was let go and Edward still claims, or so they say, that he had been framed, that someone had snuck in during the night and replaced his precious cargo with a dirty dog. Oh dear. The story seems quite strange, yeah? I think, perhaps, Susan might have made it up. She's been on and off her medication just like the old days. You remember how it was, taking some catastrophe to convince her of its necessity. She's been looking a little nervous lately, but swears she's being good. She's been carrying around this odd book nearly constantly, in fact, she won't be seaparated from it. Who knows. Well, my love, I've carried on far too long now, rambling on about things I know nothing about. Do let me know how your work comes... I've nearly worn a hole through the Shoft Shell. Is anything else found?

I love you,

Margaret