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).