Dear Rooall,

I'm very sorry to have cut you short on my last posting without getting to correct spelling and punctuation or giving a proper farewell, but "thereby hangs a tale", as they say in the American South.

I was back down near London in a library after hours having done some research on a rather dysfunctional human-sized computer on matters pertaining to you and your environs when all of a sudden an alarm went off, and I had to shut off the machine in a hurry when I heard footsteps and voices, and quickly find a place to hide. As it turns out, I had to hide on a bookshelf behind some hardback books and sleep there all night until I could sneak out in the morning. Ironically enough, I had to take my refuge and rest to avoid human bondage on the "M" shelf of the fiction section.

Then in the morning at opening time, I had to make my dash for freedom, and much like Frank & Jesse James, make my getaway. I'd have liked to have been able to make my getaway on a horse, like in those classic Westerns like "The Terror Of Tiny Town" (my favorite movie), but we elves have to make do with what's at hand.

You see, while elves can still gain access to just about anywhere,
the danger from alarms and detection systems, as well as from cats, dogs and even in some places, rats, has increased. Why, a late friend of mine was carried off by an eagle, who stole him in mid-flight from an osprey, but that's another story.

We have our own places to hide, ways of entry and travel, and our own secret network of places to eat and stay that the Large Folk must not be allowed to know about, so some fictional names and places will be given to protect us from curious Large Folk who would invade our privacy and lifestyle and even display us and put us to work in carnivals and the like. I'm not free to reveal the location of the Stubby Arms Hotel where I stay or Murray's Surrey Curry-In-A-Hurry, the corner shop where I eat.

So Santas tend to get the Glory while us elves are considered cute and happy whether risking our lives as scouts, in the delivery of messages or slaving in the sweatshops making toys. You only know half of the short story, but I have just goy to lay down and get some REAL sleep now.

Stiffly and Sorely Yours,
Elvish Pressently
Scout-Elf