Scene. The sunroom at the rear of Mrs. Reynolds' house in Woodlands Street. It is summer and the room, north-facing and looking out on a nice garden on three sides as it is, is bathed in sunlight. The breakfast trays have been ordered back to the kitchen and Mrs. Reynolds has had her chair turned in order for the sun to face her. Abbie, her pug, sits on her lap. Abbie is a cranky little piece of work and is a good match, say the staff, for her mistress. But where the staff at worst might mutter that Mrs. Reynolds is too alert to the goings on in the house, new employees are flatly warned that if they know what's good for them, they will give her dog whatever space it thinks it needs.
The sun made Abbie drowsy, and after a few minutes of snorting and snuffling, she dropped into a snore.
Mrs. Reynolds quietly scratched the spot where the back of fat little Abbie's neck should be and began to survey her world. As always, she started with the interior of her sunroom. Then, that ticked off, she moved outside into the garden and then onto the sun, the weather and the state of the nation.
Finally, she was satisfied. In fact, she thought, from where she sat everything was very pleasant indeed. So, she declared herself ready move onto the day's next order of business, which was to write her morning letter
As was her habit, Mrs. Reynolds now sat in silence for a minute, considering her options.
"Crispin!" she announced, suddenly. "I am going to write to my brother." Abbie, startled, tore off a short, sharp, trumpetlike fart and then wriggled around a bit so that she could give the old woman a bit of a glare.
"Don't look at me like that," scolded Mrs. Reynolds. "I don't care if he's dead. If I want to write a letter to my brother, I will."
The pug watched the old woman's face for a few seconds more wondering whether or not the hole in it was finished making noises. It seemed that it had, so she grunted and let a longer, more luxurious one go as she settled back into the woman's lap to resume her nap.
The lady of the house waited for Abbie's snoring to resume. Then, she waited a little while till she was sure Abbie was in her deep, as she called it, and carefully lifted the corner of the little one's doggie blanket over her back end. And then she turned her attention to the electronics she had had embedded within the ether that ran through her house. "OK, Google," she said in a calm, even tone. "Take a letter."
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