As soon as I took in the breakfast tray I knew that I had succeeded in calming whatever monster it was that bothered the mind of the prisoner. His eyes were calm, his brow untroubled and the terrible tension in every muscle had departed. He had obviously been making good use of the little bathroom and as he stepped forward into the shaft of sunlight from the tall narrow window he was quite startlingly handsome. He looked at me almost shyly, and accepted the tray with a smile.

I sighed and rubbed my hand where I had bruised it the previous evening.
'Have you hurt your hand?'
'Only a slight accident with a spanner - I was making something safe, but it was rather cold outside in the garage - luckily I have a 17oz Modern Morrison kilt for the colder weather.'
'I noticed that you wear a kilt - it isn't a skirt.'
'The uniform of the individual. I find that they are so comfortable and not restricting like a skirt.'
Again he seemed a Little shy.
'You'd better eat.' I reminded him.
He suddenly exclaimed and pointed to my jacket.
'What is that? Is it hair or fur.'
I pulled off the white fur and held it out to him. 'It is fur from my rabbits.'
He took it with trembling fingers.
'It is like the fur of the Acryli-beast, not so long, but with the same iridescence.'
'I do not know the creature. Is it kin to the Glaucomys arctos giganticus? That is know for its white fur - or blue fur of course. It only has the white fur in winter.'
He looked very like Amber doing her bowling ball impression.
'Blue fur?'
'An optical effect, really - it is blue in sunlight, and iridescent black in artificial light.'
He laughed. 'That I would like to see.'
'Really? I will see if my husband has fully finished any of the commemorative sporrans he has been working on.'
His mouth fell open.
'I wasn't sure how many of each to have made, so I asked him to do enough of each colour for all the Saltire's men.'
He made a small squeaking sound and burst into tears. I apologised and left him to recover.

I called in at the workshop to check on progress and found that the sporrans were all finished except for the engraving of the names into the silver strips.

'This is for you.' he said and showed me a box in which lay a hat and muff of the darker form of the fur. I kissed him and tried on the hat at once.
'Is it alright?'
'Perfect.' he assured me, and reclaimed it. 'I'll take it inside - the ladies might be jealous.'
'Do you think that they will like the stoles I made?'
'I think that they will love them - baby arctos fur yarn is a sustainable resource, though who would have thought that it would be pink?'
I smiled. 'Having white babies in a white environment might be alright if you keep them in a hole, but when they are running around you need to be able to see them.'

I hurried off to the nine thirty soviet, reported that the wine seemed to have done the trick and then settled down to the business of the MHICE.