Folks,

Dux:

LOL! I'm told I look like Papa Smurf. Perhaps you can print out that striking portrait and hang it by the dustbin to keep the rodents away? Hmmmmm. I doubt you have rodents in Derbyshire, much less there in the castle. Lady J would never tolerate it. Perhaps you might make it into a passable dart board then?

No Parker pen for our William. No Bic either. I saw a photo of old William's quill pen on the Internet just day before yesterday and I said to myself..."Self, if a good goose or swan feather was good enough for the Bard then perhaps it will even help you?" This may not startle you into protestation, however none of my own writing has 'quite' met up to his standards to date, however I am ever hopeful of improvement, especially by way of anything that does not require additional cognitive effort upon my part.

I agree that I am prolific if nothing else and Archaic is my middle name. A full boxcar load of finest parchment, hand-made under water, is always ready and just sitting on a spur line at the Scribble & Dripp paper factory only 50 miles up the I-95 in Roanoke Rapids. In the past, when fine papers were more in demand and auto finishes slapped on with but one brush coat, it is said that the thick, acrid emanations from that plant could peel the paint off passing automobiles. If you have ever found yourself nearly asphyxiated down wind of a paper plant you will understand my complaining that on a clear day, if the wind is just right, I can actually smell that old factory in operation. At the first whiff the sound of windows and doors being slammed shut about our neighborhood can be deafening.

Drat! Almost out of ink again. N_w w_ere the _evil d_d I set th_t pewter ink wel_? Found it! I was sitting on it all the time. I understand that the fully fledged quill pens as they are usually illustrated today are all wrong as, in reality, they were usually completely devoid of feather except for a small tuft at the very end. Live and you are forced to learn.

NOTE:

I just received your communication. Odd. The text should have been reversed white on a black background. I am sending the text in a sec. Sorry.