Kaylee's package is a little irregular, which is to say, there are two of them, one rather more misshapen than the other. The squatter, more oddly-shaped of the two turns out to contain (as a result of a spirited game of oneupmanship) a hefty brick of a book declaring itself to be Jane Austen: The Complete Novels, and a stack of dvds - which, curiously enough, bear the same names as many of the contents of the book. A somewhat smug-looking woman in a bonnet meets one's gaze from the cover of the book; from the cover of the topmost dvd, a man in mutton-chops and a floppy cravat broods attractively out at the world. The note, expressing the usual sentiments and the hope that this proves an enjoyable follow-up to the Riverside Shakespeare, is in Aziraphael's neat copperplate - except for where the words corrupting influence have been scratched out, and a spikier hand has written above them, more modern sensibilities.
The second package is tall and oblong. Inside the wrapping-paper, a box; inside the box, a
bottle. The note:
We haven't actually been to Kingston yet, but you'd be surprised at what you can dig up with a little nosing around.
- Crowley