Chapter 33: Fred feels downcast
Fred stood in the centre of his neat little studio in an upstairs room that overlooked the rear garden. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled mainly with his collection of old and new leather-bound poetry books, each volume neatly in its proper place. The little desk beneath a side window had some beautiful objects upon it, a brass inkpot in the shape of a sphinx, a delicately carved wooden holder that carried his sharpened and awaiting quills. He loved to write letters and his handwriting was legible, elegant, without too many flourishes and certainly no blots.