I feel very guilty about not writing to you before this, but you can put it down to a dose of 'flu which kept me away from the shop for a couple of weeks and a sudden rush of work since I came back.

Dear Helene,

Megan is still here but planning to go to South Africa to live, we are all trying to talk her out of it. We have heard nothing from Cecily Farr since she went out to the East to join her husband, though they were only to be gone a year.

About the Catullus in our catalogue. This was already sold before we received your letter but I have sent you an edition which contains the Latin text with a verse translation by Sir Richard Burton and also a prose translation by Leonard Smithers, printed in large type, and all for $3.78. The binding is not very handsome but it's a good clean copy. We have no edition of De Tocqueville but will keep looking for one for you.

I shall be only too pleased to root for the Brooklyn Dodgers if you will reciprocate with a few cheers for THE SPURS (the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to the uninitiated), who are at present languishing next to the bottom of the League. However, the season does not finish until next April so they have plenty of time to get themselves out of the mess.

Nora and all here join me in sending our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Sincerely,

Frank Doel