"It would be unseemly for me to beg for your succour so early in this letter, and so I shall divert you (or so I flatter myself) by relating my last conversation with my employer, Peter Romanov, or Peter the Great, as he is now styled--not without perfectly sound reasons--by many (I say "employer" because he owes--I do not say "pays"--me a stipend to act as his advisor on certain matters; my Mistress and liege-lady remains, as always, Sophie). As"