"To the tenth Viscount, my dear nephew Ernest whom I haven't broken bread with in three years. May he do more with the title than I ever did." Archie drained his glass. Now, after three, he was beginning to feel the effects. A long plateau of semi-sobriety awaited him, which seemed not such a bad way to spend one's first day among the deceased. Besides, a ration of gin helped one cope with the beastly climate. Archibald entertained the morbid thought that he was in fact dead and that this was some version of Hell never envisioned by the poets. Certainly it was no higher plane; he knew himself forever barred from that particular pearly staircase.<br/><br/>"Your Dostoevsky would disapprove, I think. God's unwillingness to share His plan with us is a failing on our part, not His. Your unwillingness to share your plan with me, however, is entirely your own responsibility. I am now a man without a home, without a country, without even a title though I think I shall continue to use it. My god, I've all of about twelve pounds sterling on me plus a handful of US dollars, and a line of credit at my hotel which is liable to be cut short if someone were to happen to read of my demise and conclude that I'm an imposter. Now I hardly think that you are responsible for my situation, but you clearly have a fair idea of what's going on. I feel I deserve some answers here, old chap." His tone was not heated; it would hardly have been proper. But there was an element of steel in in that had perhaps not been exercised for quite some time.<br/>