CHAPTER 32 OF AUDUM LEAVES From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe Esquire Part 2 September 27th Have not stirred from the house? I have not heard any voice but Flores. She has been uncommonly amiable and fascinating, and I... Am I not rather bewitched? I cannot keep my resolution of not being flirted with. I cannot be wise and reserved and indifferent. Am I trifling? Or am I in earnest? Indeed, I don't know. I only know I am constantly at the side of little handsome, without knowing how I came there. She makes me sing with her, ride with her, walk with her at her will, and as if that was not enough for one day, to test her power over me. Tonight she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Eti playing a waltz for us at Flores' request and giving me a long, serious look as I approach the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober and more sad and came away to my room to have some talk with my real self. Now for it. Says I to myself. A truce to your braiding, you old scald. Tell me at once how you find yourself affected towards this charming little flora. Says myself. There are no tastes in common between her and me. Says I quickly, music! Then try it. A moment or two. But the snarling old fellow asked whether I liked her singing or her flattery. For this part he thought we both liked to hear our own voices and agreed and nothing else. Taste, indeed. When I would not let her sing a song I cared a Philip for. In short, my self-communion ended in some very sage resolutions. I faired the beautiful head with the shining curls, was somewhat vacant. And the heart was that empty likewise. Was that hidden cell the home of all the loveliest affections? The firmest and purest faith and motive. Everything that should be there to rule the life and my picture in the wall? I question this. Does she love me? Oh yes, answered Vanity. Oh no, said Goodsense, not at all. If your picture is in her heart it is one of a whole gallery.   And I resolved. September 27th. A very dull day. You are as sober as a judge, said Flora at breakfast. I caught at his eye, but it said nothing. Nantes Tabitha, who yesterday evidently thought me in desperate case, and once inquired about my income very significantly, now suspected a quarrel between Flora and me. I was embarrassed, and other turned the cream. No great loss, said Etty, seeing that I was chagrined. I say she made up of a lover's quarrel. Said on Tabitha, silly old woman. No, silly young fellow. Flora has revenged herself on me as she meant to do for defying her power.  But Richards himself again, and wiser than he was. Pierre. I endeavoured to talk more with Miss Etty, that the change in my manner might be less observed. It is all natural that I should be as grave as a judge when I addressed myself to so quiet a member of society. She seemed to divine my object, and sustain the dialogue. I never knew her to do it before. It is not diffidence. It seems that has been the cause of this reserve. I was the more diffident of the two, failing to express my thoughts. Well, from a hurry and uncertainty of mind, which I am not often troubled with all. It was partly astonishment, in truth, that confused me.  I shall call her little ugly still, however, for I could not make her look at me as she spoke, nor answer my wit by a change of countenance. September 28th. Little handsome cannot be convinced that the flirtation is over, absolutely at an end. She alternately rails at my capricious solemnity and pretends to be grieved at it. I can see that nothing but my avoidance of tete a tete is my safety. Should this sentimental tone prevail, then tears come into those beautiful eyes. I am a gone man at my earnest request. I have grown humble or bold enough to ask a favour. Miss Etty has brought, or rather dragged, her work-basket into the parlour. A great basket it is, so great, that I imagine in her own apartment she gets into the middle of it bodily. I sat down towards the motions of her adroit little digits in darning stockings and mending homely garments. I imagined, rather than so, a humorous gleam in her eye as I did so. And there was certainly a slight contraction in her mouth and length, as if to counteract an inclination of the muscles to move in the opposite direction. Flora fluttered about the room like a bright-hued butterfly, pausing a moment at a window or a bookcase or resting awhile to play a few capricious notes on the piano. And sometimes coming to view Miss Etty's employment as if it were a branch of industry she was unacquainted with and curious about. My maples are turning red already, setting sun through a glorious light through their tinted foliage, and the still bosom of the lake reflected it in a softened, changeable hue of mingled crimson and silver. Flora was standing at the door, I somehow found myself there also, but I talked over my shoulder to Aunt Tabitha about potatoes. I have a fancy for a walk around the pond, said Flora. After a pause she looked at me as much to say, Don't you see, you monster! It is too late for me to go alone. Miss Flora, I will second your wish if you can drum up a third party, said I, point blank. Flora blushed and pouted for a moment, then beckoned to little ugly, who disobligingly suggested that the grass would be wet. It so happened there was no dew, and Flora convinced her of the fact by running in the grass and then presenting the soul of her shoe for her inspection. Miss Etty, her ill-chosen objection being vanquished, went for her bonnet, and we set forth. Miss Flora's arm in mine, as a matter of course, and Miss Etty's in hers, save where the exigencies of the woodland path gave her an excuse to drop behind. A little boat tied to a stump suggested to Flora a new whim. Instead of going around the pond, which I now began to like doing, I must worry myself with rowing her across. I was ready enough to do it, however, and not Miss Etty quietly observed that the pond was muddy, and the boat unsea-worthy. Flora would not have yielded to twenty feet of water, but mud. She sighed and resumed my arm, I offering the other to Miss Etty and so determined away that she could not wave accepting it, marched forward with spirits rising to highly in locacity, presently feeling a sudden irritation at the feather-like lightness with which little ugly's fingers just touched my over, as if she disdained any support from me. I caught her hand and drew it through my arm, and when I relinquished it, pressed her arm to my side with mine, thinking she would snatch it away and walk alone in offended dignity. Whether she was too really dignified for that, or took my rebuke as it was intended, I know not, but she leaned on my arm with somewhat greater confidence during the remainder of our walk, and now even volunteered a remark. Before we finished the circumambulation of the pond, she had quite forgotten her sulky reserve and talked with much earnestness and animation. Flora subsided into a listener with a willing interest which raised her in my estimation considerably. Now, the time alone in my room and journalizing it behooves me to gather and record some of these words precious from their rarity. Flora and I, in our merry nonsense, had a mock dispute and referred the matter to Miss Etty for arbitration. Etty, mind you's side with me, said Flora. Be an impartial umpire, Miss Etty, said I. And you will be on my side." A little ugly was obliged to confess that she had not heard a word of the matter. Her thoughts being elsewhere intently engaged. I must request you to excuse my inattention, she said, and to repeat what you are saying. The latter request I scorn to grant, said I. And the former we will consider about when we have heard what thoughts have been preferred to our most edifying conversation. You shall tell us, said Flora. Yes, or we till go off and leave you to your meditations here in the dark woods with owls and the tree-toes whom you probably prefer for company. Miss Etty condescended to confess she should be frightened, without my manful protection. Quite a triumph! I must thank you, she said. For the novelty of an evening walk in the woods, I enjoyed it, I confess, very highly. Look at those dark, mysterious vistas and those deepening shadows blending the bank with its mirror. How different from the trite daylight truth! It took strong hold of my imagination. Go on, and so you were thinking. I was hardly doing so much as thinking. I was seeing it to remember. Etty draws like an artist, said Flora, in a whisper. I was taking a mental daguerreotype of my companions by twilight and of all the scene round, too, in the same gray tint, just to look at some ten or fifteen years hence, when, let us all agree, said I, on the twenty-eighth of September, eighteen, to remember this evening, I am certain I shall look back to it with pleasure. Oh, horrid, shrieked Flora, how can you talk so? By that time you will be a shocking middle-aged sort of person. I always wonder how people can be resigned to live when they have lost youth and with it all that makes life bearable fifteen years, dismal thought. I shall have outlived everything I care about in life. So moaned little Hanson. But you may have found new sources of interest, suggested I, perhaps a little too tenderly, for I had some sympathy with her dread of that particular phase of existence, middle-agedness. Perhaps as the mistress of a household, worse and worse, screamed Flora, a miserable comforter you are, as if it were not enough merely to grow old, but one must be a slave and a martyr, never doing anything one would prefer to do, nor going anywhere that one wants to go, down forever to one spot and one perceptual companion. Ha! Planning dinners every day for cooks hardly less ignorant than yourself, added I, laughing at her selfish horror of matronly bondage, yet provoked at it. Misety, would you, if you could, stand still instead of going forward? My happiness is altogether different from Flora's, she replied. Though we were brought up side by side, what has taught me to be independent of the world and its notice was my being continually compared with her, and assured with compassionate regret that I had none of those qualifications which could give me success in general society. Which was a libel, I began, without the last syllable, said Flora, catching up the word, at any rate. I knew I was plain and shy and made friends slowly, so I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious than it was ten years ago, that I feel certain I shall have a wider and fuller enjoyment of the same ten years hence. What they are, I partly guess, and partly drew from her, in her uncommonly frank mood, I begin to perceive that I, as well as Flora, have been cherishing most mistaken and unsatisfactory aims. My surly old inner self has often hinted as much, but I would not hear him. Etty may have her mistaken views too, but she has set me thinking. Well, you crusty old curmudgeon, what has been my course since the awe of the schoolmaster ceased to be a sort of external conscience? You told me study was none of your business, says conscience, and a pretty piece of work you have made of it without me. Idle in college, and when you begin to perceive the connection between study and what people call success in life, overworking yourself here you are and just beginning to rethink yourself that I might have furnished just the right degree of stimulus if you had buttelled out it. Hock! Hock! It is the duet! That silvery second is Etty's. I will steal downstairs. And when they have ended, pop in and it shall go hard, but I will have another song. Parlor dark and empty, I fancied, I heard Flora giggling somewhere, but I might be mistaken. Yet the voices sounded as if they came from that quarter, and I am sure I heard one note of the piano to give the pitch. Hock! I hear the parlor door softly shut, and now the stairs creak and betray them stealing up as they probably betrayed me stealing down. They only blew out the lights and kept perfectly still. Witches! Donkey! Etty, your voice is still with me, clear, sweet, and penetrating as it was when you talked so eloquently tonight in our dreamy ramble. What if I had early adopted her idea that with every conscious power is bound up both the duty and the pleasure of developing it? Might I not now have reached higher ground with health of body and mind? Ambition is an unhealthy stimulus. A wretchedly uneasy guest too in the breast of an invalid, I would feign have a pure motive which shall dismiss or control it. Etty! What are the uses to be made of her talents? All she lives thus withdrawn into a world of her own. Certainly, she is wrong. I shall convince her of it when our friendship, now fairly planted, I trust, shall have taken root. Now we shall be the best friends in the world and I will confide to her my... my... Oh! I am nodding over my paper and that click says the old clock at the stair-head is making ready to announce midnight. September 29th Capricious are the ways of a woman kind.  I am chagrined. I think I am... an ill-used man.  Only Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to flora and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the sermon was homely and dull and that the singing was discordant. Miss Etty assented but very coldly and presently she bolted into an old red-house and left me to go home by myself. When we started for church again she was among the missing and we found her in the pew on arrival, thus pointedly to avoid me. It might be accident, however, that she did not refuse to sing from the same hymn-book with me and pointed to a verse on the other page, quaint but excellent. After all, Old Watts has written the best hymns in the language. Evening. Without choice I found myself walking round the pond again. It was as smooth as glass and the leaves scarcely trembled on the trees and bushes around it and in my heart rained a similar calm. A strange quiet has fallen on my usually restless and anxious mind. I thought that in future I could be content not to look beyond the present day and having done my best in all circumstances that I could leave the results to follow as God wills. At that moment I could sincerely say let him set me high or low wherever he has work for me to perform. If I can remain thus quiet in mind my health will soon return, I feel assured. If a well-founded distrust I fear this peace must be only a mood to pass away when my natural spirits return. The fever of covetousness, of rivalry, of envy and ambitious earthly aspirations will come back. Like waves upon the lake these uneasy feelings will chase each other over my soul. I picked up a little linen wristband at this moment which I recognized.  I will put it in my pocketbook and keep it as a remembrance her for I am glad to perceive this is the very spot where we stood when we agreed to remember it and each other fifteen years hence. I shall see what I shall be then and I shall have some aid from this funny little talisman. It will speak to me quite as intelligibly and distinctly as its owner in a silent mood at any rate. Hi-ho! How lonely I feel tonight! Every human soul is, must be, a hermit yet there might be something near a companionship found for mine as yet. No one knows me, my real self. Ha! old fellow, I like you better than I did. Let us be good friends. End of From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 2 Recording by Adrin Levitsky, Chapter 33 of Autumn Leaves This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Adrin Levitsky, Autumn Leaves Edited by Anna Wales Abbott From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 3 September 30th A golden sunrise. How much one loses under a false idea of its being a luxury to sleep in the morning? Reclining under Farmer Puddingstone's Elm and looking upon the glassy pond in which the glowing sky mirrored itself, my soul was fired with poetic inspiration. On the blank page of a letter I wrote, How holy the calm in the stillness of morn! And threw down my paper being suddenly quenched by self-ridicule as I was debating whether to write to Ethelund over the top. Returning that way after my ramble, I found the following conclusion pinned to the tree by a jackknife. How holy the calm in the stillness of morn! When to call him to breakfast, Josh toots on the horn. The ducks gives a quack and the cow gives a moo and the children chimes in with a plaintiff boo-hoo. How holy the calm in the stillness of noon! When the pot is a-singin' its silvery tune. It's soft, woolly tune just like Arabi's daughter while the tea kettle plays up the symphony-arter. How holy the calm in the stillness of night! When the moon, like a pumpkin, looks yoller and bright! While the owls and the catty-dids screeching like thyme just brings me up close to the end of my rhyme. And, underneath was added, as if in scorn of my fruitless endeavour, I wrote that all right off, as fast as you could shell-corn SP. I suppose it is by way of thanks for my having driven the pigs from the garden that I find a great bunch of dahlias adorning my mantel-piece, a brown earthen pitcher, and in the middle of the dahlias a magnificent sunflower it must be my aunt's doing, and its very homeliness pleases me, just as I love her homely sincerity of affection. Who arranges the glasses in the parlour? Etty. I would not fear to affirm from the asters and goldenrod-cheek by joe with petunias and carnations. I wonder if you would not like some of the clematis I saw twarning about a dead tree by the pond. It is more beautiful in its present state than when it was in flower. Etty loves wildflowers because she is one herself, and loves to hide here in her native nook, when, oh, I, I might accept my own, gives her more than a casual glance. Noon. I shall think it quite uncivil of little ugly if she does not volunteer to arrange my share of the booty I am bringing, now that I have almost broken my neck, and quite my cane to obtain it. This I said to myself as I came into the house by the kitchen entrance and proceeded to deposit my trailing treasures on Nora's table by the side of a yellow squash.  The old folks have not seen you since you return. I can't! said Flora with a drawl. Yes, do! be coaxible for once. It only makes me obstinate to coax. Why not go without me, I beg? I am no novelty. I was and twice only yesterday. Old people like a tension from such as you because because it is unreasonable to expect it. The old man is failing. I can't do him any good. It is dusty and my gown is long. It would please him to see you. I went to sit with him yesterday but Timothy Digford came in with the same intent. So I went to church having walked in the graveyard till the bell rang. Owl that you are! I don't envy you, the lively meditations you must have had. Why don't you go? It's of no use waiting for me. What? Will you let me carry both these baskets? There, put the little one on top of the other. I don't think three or four peaches and a few flowers can add much to the weight. It is tiresome enough to do what I don't want to do when it is really necessary. And little handsome danced into the parlour without perceiving me. I laid a detaining hand on Eti's basket as she put herself in motion on which she turned round with a look of unfeigned astonishment. May I not be a substitute for Flora, I inquired. I did not require any aid, said Miss Eti shyly. It is not on that account I was urging Flora. Please, to let me have the basket. Indeed, it is quite necessary you should trouble yourself. She insisted, as I persevered and carrying off my load. It is the old red house, is it not? said I, with a roof sloping almost to the ground. And shall I say that you sent this? A view of my strange fizz will not refresh the old people like the sight of Flora's fresh young face, but I shall go in and make the agreeable as well as I can. Are you really an earnest? Asked Eti, looking full in my face with a smile of wonder that made her radiantly beautiful.  It was some time before I quite recovered from a strange flurry of spirits, which made my heart bump very much as it does when I hear any unexpected good news. And then I dashed away upon the subject of old age, and anything else that came uppermost in the hope of drawing the soul-lighted eyes to mine again, with that transfiguring smile playing upon the lips. But I was like an unskillful magician. I had lost the spell. I could not again discover the spring I had touched. In vain I said to myself, I'll make her do it again.  She answered my incoherent smiles in her usual sedate manner, and I believe it was only in my imagination that her cheek dimpled a little with the heightened colour known then when I was particularly eloquent. Introduced by Miss Eti, I was cordially welcomed. I'm always affected by the sight of an aged woman who at all reminds me of the grandmother who is so indulgent to my prankful boyhood. The old man, too, interest me. He has seen much of the world in his seafaring life and related his adventures in a most unhackneyed style. I'll go and see them every day. One of the captain's anecdotes was very good. An old salt? He said. Once. Once. What was it?  This I saw out of the corner of my eye. Huck! Aunt Tabitha's called to dinner. I'm glad of it. I was scribbling such nonsense when I have so much to write better worthwhile. Twelve o'clock. The night is beautiful and it is a piece of self-denial to close the shutter, light my lamp, and write in my journal. Peace of mind came yesterday. Positive happiness today. Neither of which I can analyse. I only know I have not been so thoroughly content since the acquisition of my first jackknife, nor so proud since the day when I first sported a shining beaver. I have conquered Eti's distrust. She has actually promised me her friendship. I am rather surprised that I am so enchanted at this triumph over a prejudice. I am hugely delighted, not because it is a triumph, however. Vanity has nothing to do with it. It is a worthier feeling, one in which humility mingles with a more cordial self-respect than I have hitherto been conscious of. I can, and I will, deserve Eti's good opinion. She is an uncompromising judge, but I will surprise her by going beyond what she believes me capable of. I never had a sister. I shall adopt Eti, and when I go home, we will write every week, if not every day. But how came it all about? By what blessed sunbeams can the ice have been softened? Till now, as I hope, it is broken up forever. People under the same roof cannot long mistake each other, it seems, else Eti and I should never have become friends. As we left the door of Captain Black's house and turned into the field path to avoid the dust, Eti said, I do not know whether you care much about it, but you have given pleasure to these good old people who have but little variety in their daily routine, being poor and infirm and lonely. It is really a duty to cheer them up if we can. I felt that it warmed my heart to have shared that duty with her, and I said so. I thought she looked doubtful and surprised. It was a good opening for egotism, and I improved it. I saw that she was no uninterested listener, but all along rather suspicious and incredulous, as if what I was claiming for myself was inconsistent with her previous notions of my disposition. I believe I had made some little impressions Saturday night, but her old distrust had come back by Sunday morning. Now she was again shaken. At last, looking up with the air of one who has taken a mighty resolve, she said, I presume such a keen observer as yourself must have noticed that the most reserved people are, on some occasion, the most frank and direct. I am going to tell you that I feel some apology due to you. If my first impressions of your character are really incorrect, I am puzzled what to think. I am to suppose that your first impressions were not as favourable as those of Mrs. Black, whom I heard remark that I was an amiable youth with an uncommonly pleasant smile. Just the opposite, in fact. Pardon me. By I you had a mocking, ironical cast of countenance. I felt sure at once you were the sort of person I never could make a friend of and acquaintances I'd leave to Flora, who wants to know everybody. I thought the less I had to do with you, the better. I felt hurt and almost insulted. I had not been mistaken, then. She had disliked me and perhaps disliked me yet. It was not that I stood in fear of your satire, she continued. I am indifferent to ridicule or censure in general. No one but a friend has power to wound me. A flattering emphasis. Truly. I felt my temper a little stirred by Miss Etty's frankness. I was sulkily silent. I had no claim to any forbearance, any consideration for peculiarities of any sort. I am perfectly resigned to being the theme of your wit in any circle if you can find alt in my country-bred rays to amuse you. Sounds! I must speak. My conduct to Flora must have confirmed the charming impression produced by my unlucky fizz, I imagine. But don't bear malice against me in her behalf. You must have seen that she was perfectly able to revenge herself. Etty's light-hearted laugh rung out and reminded me of my once baffled curiosity when it reached my ear from Nora's domain. But though this unsuppressed mirth of hers revealed the prettiest row of teeth in the world and made the whole face decidedly beautiful, somehow or other it gave me no pleasure but rather a feeling of depression. My joining in it was pure pretence. Presently the brightness faded and I found myself gazing at the cold countenance of little ugly again. No, I did not refer to Flora, said she. As you say, she can avenge her own quarrel and we both were quite as ready to laugh at you as you could be to laugh at us, I assure you. No doubt of it, said I with some peek. But what I cannot forgive you, cannot think of with any toleration is what, cried I, astonished. How have I offended? A man of any right feeling at all could not make game of an aged woman his own relative at the same time that he was receiving her hearty and affectionate hospitality. Neither have I done so, cried I, in a towering passion. You do me a great wrong in accusing me of it. I would knock any man down who should treat my aunt with any disrespect. And if I have sometimes allowed Flora to do it unrebuked, you well know that she might once have pulled my hair or cuffed my ears and I should have thought a becoming thing for a young lady to do. I have played the fool under your eye and submit that you should entertain no high opinion of my wisdom. But you have no right to judge so unfavorably of my heart. If I have spoken to my aunt with boyish petulance, she vexed me, at least it was to her face, and regretted and atoned for to her satisfaction. I am incapable of deceiving her, much less of ridiculing her either behind her back or before her face. I respond to her love for me with sincere gratitude and the sister of my grandmother shall never want any attention that an own grandson could render while I live. I shall find it hard to forgive you this accusation, Miss Etty, I said hortily and shut my mouth as if I would never speak to her again. She made no answer, but looked up into my face with one of those wondrous smiles. It went as straight to my heart as a pistol bullet could do, my high indignation proving no defense against it. I was instantly vanquished and as I heartily shook the hand she held out to me I was just able to refrain from pressing it to my lips, which now I think of it. Would have been a most absurd thing for me to do. I wonder what could have made me think of doing it. After dinner I hear Flora's musical laugh and the mysterious bourgeois and a low congratulatory little murmur of good humour on Etty's part. I believe she is afraid to laugh loud, lest I should hear her do it and rush to the spot. The door is ajar. I'll storm the castle. Flora admitted me with a shout of welcome. The instant I tapped Etty pushed a rocking chair toward me but said nothing. The little room was almost lined with books, drawings, paintings, shells, corals and in the sunny window plants met my exploring gaze but the great basket was nowhere to be seen. It was scot up for the nonce, I imagine. Etty rogue! This is the pleasantest nook in the house. It is a shame you have not been let in before, said Flora zealously. You shall see at his drawings. Neither of us opened the portfolio she seized, however, but watched Etty's eyes. They were cast down with a diffident blush which gave me pain. I was indeed an intruder. She gave us the permission we waited for, however. There were many good copies of lessons. Those I did not dwell upon. But the sketches spirited though imperfect. I studied as if they had been those of an Alston. Etty was evidently in a fidget at this preference of the smallest line of original talent over the corrected performances which are like those of everybody else. I drew out a full length figure done in black chalk on brown paper. It chained Flora's wandering affection as quite new. It was a young man with his chair tipped back. His feet rested on a table with a slipper perched on each toe.  The face, really, I was angry at the diabolical expression given it by eyes looking askance, a lips pressed into an arch by a contemptuous smile. It was a corner of this very brown sheep that I saw under her arm. When she vanished from the kitchen as I entered the vociferous mirth which attracted me was at my expense before Flora could recognize my portrait.   I had totally forgotten it, said she with a blush which avenged my wounded self-love. Ironical pleasure at having seen the subject of her pencil I could not indulge myself in expressing as I did not care to enlighten little handsome. Any lurking peak was banished when Etty showed me with a smile the twilight view by the pond. Do you draw, she asked, and Flora cried, he makes caricatures of his friends with pen and ink. Let him deny it if he can. I was silent. End of From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 3 Recording by Adrien Levitsky End of Autumn Leaves Edited by Anna Wales Abbott


Prigozin is trying to replace Shoigu with Mizintsev in the post of Defense Minister. Yevgeny Prigozin, the founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, hopes to remove Sergei Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, from his position after the decisive victory in Bakhmut and replace him with the former Deputy Defense Minister Mikhail Mizintsev. US-based Institute for the Study of War ISW reported it. Select representatives of law enforcement of Russia appear to be unsuccessful in their attempts to scare Prigozin into obedience. Prigozin stated that he is ready to take on the bureaucrats and accused them of attempting to gain more authority while using Wagner to fight the war. The ISW said, Prigozin also accused unnamed officials of indifference to the deaths of Russians at the front line and sarcastically stated that Russia's future Defense Minister has been in Bakhmut for more than a week when asked if Shoigu had accepted his invitation to visit the front line in Bakhmut. The ISW recalls that Prigozin recently made public his cooperation with the former Russian Deputy Defense Minister for Logistics and now the Deputy Commander of the Wagner Group, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, and it is possible that Prigozin is trying to promote Mizintsev to replace Shoigu. Prigozin is likely aware that Putin is not entirely convinced of Shoigu's ability to win the war and may be hopeful that a decisive victory in Bakhmut would give him the leverage to replace Shoigu with Wagner-affiliated officials. Both Prigozin and Shoigu likely perceive this feud as an existential matter. The ISW said.


I'm Sasha Fisher. I graduated in May 2010 from UVM Arts and Sciences, the degree in Human Security and Studio Art. After I graduated I went to Rwanda and co-founded and am now the director of an organization called Spark Microgrants. So what Spark is doing and the idea behind Microgrants is to build the organizational capacity of communities living in poverty to get together, design a project together, and receive a small grant as a group to invest in a public sector project. It sounds really obvious, right? Let people facing a problem solve the problem themselves and somehow this just isn't being done in the aid world and what we're doing is we're entrusting people facing problems on the ground and people in rural villages in Rwanda and rural areas of Uganda and we're trusting them with their own development. You know when we provide them the opportunity to start their own projects and they usually are very cynical at the beginning. They say you know well we can't do this you should come do it for us but by the end of the project they're incredibly empowered and see that they can initiate this change and that they can use outside resources to enable that change to happen and so it's a very empowering process for people on the ground and it builds a lot of dignity. It's really exciting to see how proud the community members are after the project is implemented. One of the first projects that we did in Uganda was we worked with a man named Aaron who was running a very small CBO which is a small community-based organization. He helped to organize a series of meetings with the woman in his village so that they could design a microgram proposal and the woman initially asked us to come in and build them a school and we said well we can't build you a school but we have $1,600 you could do whatever you want with it. They designed a whole project proposal around building a school for the kids in the area who either were not going to school or who had to walk very long distances and dangerous distances to get to a very poor school. After three months of project planning and building a project proposal with an action plan, a budget, a sustainability plan they submitted the proposal to us. We reviewed it and we gave them feedback on it and then we gave them the $1,600 microgram to build a school. I was very worried that this wasn't you know not nearly enough money to invest in the school but in February 2011 they opened a school for over 90 students. They didn't think they could do it at the beginning and here they were opening a school for their children and funding it and now they're the administrative team for the school. The school has actually received follow-on support from a partner foundation and has now even tripled in capacity and has over 300 students.


Hey guys, it's Nate, aka The Foot Accountant. Welcome back to the channel. Things are about to get interesting on the FIFA 23 market today because I think there is a potential for a lot of supply to hit the market that could impact a lot of player prices because of a fan favorite Champions League based SBC, UEFA marquee matchups. And I am pretty much expecting that SBC to drop today because we're in the middle of a Champions League based promo anyway, or a Europa promo with live cards for all these different competitions. And we haven't had it yet. And it's the fourth matchday. We didn't have it last week. It just makes sense for UEFA marquee matchups to be dropping today. So I want to take a look at how that of course supply could impact the market. But we still have compensation EA sports didn't tweet about the hero pack situation yet. I feel like I checked Twitter like every 30 minutes to see if they're going to say anything. They have not said anything yet. And they actually did tweet yesterday, but it wasn't about the whole hero compensation. It wasn't about the tradable packs that we are still do from an SBC that was released incorrectly as untradable over a week ago now that Holland's transfer SBC. Yes, I'm still remembering. So all of that uncertainty plus some supply coming today could make it a pretty interesting day on the market. So we're going to talk about all of that and potentially investing in some road to the knockout cards that have games today or tomorrow. I'm going to talk through that as well in today's video. So if you're excited for Champions League today, hit the thumbs up and subscribe if you're new. Let's talk about that UEFA marquee matchups. Again, as I said, we thought we were going to see this SBC last week for matchday three and never dropped. But if we take a look back to last year in FIFA 22, I like to do this, right? You've seen me doing a couple of videos. EA like to repeat themselves. The timing and stuff usually kind of goes together year over year. Yes, it does change. And yes, of course, EA do release the content. They can do whatever they want. They can change things up every single year. You know, we haven't had UEFA marquee matchups yet. I would assume they're going to continue the same tradition. It's been in FIFA the past couple of years and people like the SBCs. And I think EA can move the market a lot with them. Last year, the first time they dropped it was during the road to the knockouts promo, right? You can see that around this, we had some other Champions League based SBCs. Remember that Bernardo Silva, the Polatano SBC as well. So I really think that UEFA marquee matchups is going to drop today. And it's always pretty cheap, right? And usually what they do is they put in two different SBCs into this. So you get three packs, you get the group reward, and then you get two individual packs for the SBCs that are inside of this. And they usually pick like the biggest matchups between the upcoming next two days in that match day, like Tuesday and Wednesday. They pick a game from Tuesday, they pick a game from Wednesday. So yes, we're probably going to see supply on the market today if this SBC drops because the packs are literally always tradable, just like regular marquee matchups. And I want to talk about a couple of the games that they might put into here. I feel like Milan Chelsea, especially with where Group E is really up for grabs for basically any club. I think that game would be a perfect game to feature in the away from marquee matchups today. Also Dortmund Sevilla could be one of the features. And then from the Wednesday game, like I said, they usually pick one from Tuesday, one from Wednesday. I could very easily see them putting in Barcelona and Inter. They could maybe put in, I don't know, Napoli, Ajax, Atletico, Club Brug. I mean, Wednesday maybe is a little bit more open. But I really think that Milan Chelsea would be the perfect option for them to put in away from marquee matchups today. So with that being said, yes, you maybe can invest in some of those cards if you want to invest at your own risk. Of course, there's no leaks about UEFA MMS. You might see a couple of leaks potentially leading up to the game and the games and the content drop today. So just kind of be careful and maybe look around Twitter a little bit for that. But really what this is going to bring is some supply to the market. And you think about what supply could do to the market on a day like today. Kind of think about how the market reacted yesterday, too. We had a lot of really great content yesterday. You saw a lot of player prices rising up in the morning. And that was what we talked about. Usually Mondays, you have that nice meta market rise as people get their weekly rewards paid out. They finish their games. They wake up and they want to go start playing their qualifier games or their division rivals games to start working towards their next set of reward packs that they can work towards. You see a nice market rise into Monday. Then you see a little bit of a drop off as we did yesterday because of the upgrade packs and the content that they put out. I don't want to just speak about that here for a second. I'm looking at Usman Dembele because a lot of people were trying to trade with cards yesterday and it was profitable. You just had to pick the right cards. Dembele overnight was 89,000 coins, rose all the way back up 10K to basically 99K right before the content drop yesterday. He went right back down actually under 90K, but a lot of people were sniping in him and investing in him trying to see and hope that he would go back up to like 98K. He really did and he kind of stopped at like 95 and is just now chilling at like 92 to 93K. But there were other cards that were a lot more profitable. I personally got some Sadio Mondays that like won 69, 170 and I actually ended up selling him closer to 180. He's back down to about 170. Now you had some fluctuation yesterday for sure on a lot of these kind of more higher rated meta gold cards and some of your out of packs cards, some of your Inforums and even some of these road to the knockout cards had some good fluctuations yesterday that you could actually end up trading with. If we get the UEFA Marquis matchups today or also if we get some sort of compensation, I really do feel like you're going to see that supply hit the market decently well. I mean, it does always depend on the packs, right? If they drop, because if they drop packs that are not that good, then yeah, you're not going to see these player prices move that much. If there's not that much supply or if the supply is really not that good, but what it really could do is create an opportunity maybe to buy a road to the knockout card for an investment. It could create an opportunity to buy a team of the week card right before they go out of packs tomorrow as an investment, or it really could just as we have done so many times in the past couple of weeks in the beginning period of this game, trade with gold cards when they get supply, right? Just like we saw yesterday, you know, whether it's supply on the market, which we didn't have that much of yesterday, or if it's just a little bit of panic selling with good upgrade packs and content to do. This Furlan Mendy was 113K. He went down to the low 100s, rebounded right back to where he is now at 117,000 coins. Cards like this go through and look through some graphs of yesterday of cards that went down, but then rebounded back up nicely. Those are the cards that you would want to trade with today on Tuesday if we get a little bit of supply. Now again, it is all relative. If we get UEFA Marquis matchups today and if we get compensation packs from EA Sports, then there might be a lot of supply and it might not be as easy to trade with some of these cards and to make coins off of them, and you might just see player prices slide down a decent amount in general if that happens. Now also what I'd have to say is, wow, Mane is definitely not 170K, as Footbin just said that he was. He's 180K. Interesting. Speaking from a team perspective, if you had some have some of these cards in your team and you're like, Nate, what should I do with some of these guys? I think that the market, with everything that's going on, there's really good SBCs that are out right now with the upgrade packs, road to the knockouts are in packs, and especially with the whole hero compensation, with the other compensations that have to happen, there's just so many factors for me right now. I would just be very, very careful holding tradeable cards in your team. I mean, I said that same thing yesterday, and I said that yesterday would create, especially as that we saw the market rise into the morning, it was going to create a really nice time to maybe cash out on a few cards in your team if you wanted to. And then if you're able to play with maybe a little bit of a untradable team throughout this week, or just more like, be careful and don't hold the cards that you buy for your team. If you're going to go buy Benzema to play some games, maybe just go buy Benzema and then sell them right afterwards. You're not going to lose a lot of coins, just for tax is probably what you would lose if you go and do that. So that's the kind of thing I'd be a little bit careful with this week is holding on to teams too long, because I still think that by the time we get to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, especially EA has some tricks up their sleeve now with packs in the code. We had the team of the week pack dropped yesterday. It was dropped one time non repeatable, which is a bit of a bummer, but I guess it's how they want to start us off this year, right? The 80 plus team of the week, you could just do it one time. And then it went away. We still have that hero pack and the icon pack. I'm going to keep reminding you guys of that until we see it in the game. And because that's going to cause some havoc. The first time every single year that we see a base icon upgrade or a foot hero upgrade pack, the game goes bananas because that's like the first gamble, SPC pack of the year. And so, I mean, not saying those are coming this week, but the potential is there because they are in the code. So I just be careful with holding too many cards in your teams right now, but trading with the supply and with the rare cards that fluctuate up and down a price is very profitable. Even yesterday, like I said, without supply, it was more of a panic, right? I was looking at some impacts cards that were pretty meta, like I bought Oda guards at like 92 93, I think one of them at 94 sold at 102 105, I bought some Chaminis out of packs with a little bit of panic. If we get supply today, watch your out of packs cards. Absolutely, right? There will be a little bit of panic selling some ones to watches, maybe some of your out of pack team of the week two, team of the week one cards, heroes, even though we're being very careful of trading with heroes right now. Some of those cards yesterday had really, really good movements on the market. So that's what I'd be trading with just from a purely trading perspective on the market is watch for those dips in price. And yes, the cards can rebound back up, even if they get packed and get supplied. It's just the most meta and the most popular cards that have those fluctuations. So again, as I said, we're still awaiting compensation. And it's kind of funny that EA actually tweeted from the EA FIFA direct account yesterday, they had a tweet, and they said, the issue has been addressed and impacted players have been message. They did the first compensation of like the four different compensations that they have to provide right now. They gave out footchamps rewards that were golds instead of, you know, the actual footchamps items. So GGs to EA, they're working on it, I guess. And man, I just have a feeling that today, we're going to get some tweets from EA sports. I don't know why I'm feeling today on Tuesday, but I just think that the day after their holiday, you know, I say holiday because EA is a global company, not just in Canada, but that's where their headquarters are. There was people from EA that don't live in Canada that I saw tweeting yesterday and like working. So and maybe that's why this account was tweeting. So I don't know. I really don't know, guys, when this compensation is going to happen. But maybe it's today. I mean, we're still do that Holland SBC. I think that Holland SBC has expired. It's no longer in the game. You know, Holland's transfer that was supposed to give us those packs. And we're supposed to get some compensation from that. Yeah, that SBC is gone. And we're supposed to get compensation from it still. So that's kind of what's going on there. With that stuff, just a little bit again about the content yesterday, I think the 80 plus player or the 80 plus upgrade pack is solid. We didn't get player picks, but at least they gave us a better upgrade pack SBC. You only need one rare and you only need what is it like? Six players? That's not bad. Six players, one rare, not too bad at all. Some people have had a really good luck from these other people have had just average look. I'm in more of the average category. I literally just did one before I started recording the video and I packed Marcus Rashford. That might have been my best pack pull, like I literally out of all of these, I can't lie. Also, weakening rewards yesterday, I got Sorloth, Werner and Klaus as Reds. I got Goosens and Dest done. This is what the team is looking like at the moment. I'm looking to upgrade my left back and left center back for sure. And Adama is just all paced, but I might even start Rashford over him because, you know, I would like my left wing to be able to pass and shoot as well. So, you know, that's kind of a quick look at the team right there. But what I also want to take a look at and talk about from yesterday's content was the 80 plus team of the week. Just the fact that it was only one time non-repeatable kind of sucked a little bit. I was hoping that we were going to have that at least repeatable a couple of times. And I don't know what the deal is with EA Sports and the upgrade packs only being available for two days. Like we have two days to do these. Maybe I don't know if it has anything to do with leaks. Like they don't want us to see the leaks and to be able to save these for the next upcoming promo. I think that's pretty petty. And that's actually the case. I feel like that's not the case. I just wish that the upgrade packs were available for longer. Like this happened last week with the 78 plus during the ones to watch. It just felt like it was out for such a short time frame and it didn't really make sense to me. So anyways, I guess we only have two days to get all the upgrade packs in that we want to get in in terms of that content from yesterday. We also had like the net finder, SBC or whatever it was. And if you like to trade on a low budget, there were some center mids yesterday. Again, this is such yeah, or was it one for the win? No net splitter. That was the SBC. Every single day a pack SBC comes out like this.  I believe it was English center mids because you needed three center mids in the formation and you needed goal players and you needed a lot of chemistry. That's the like, you know, the formula for seeing prices go up on the market is seeing an SBC that requires a lot of chemistry for a good pack that would have a lot of demand. People were saying that like Jesse Lingard or maybe, you know, his card is a center attacking mid, right? Evidently, Lingard's card yesterday was selling at like 4000 coins at one point and that might have been like a little SBC solution trading in there. He's still at 1000 coins right now. So just knowing when SBCs like that drop, how that's going to impact the market and just looking, knowing where to look and then finding which cards are going up. That could be a huge coin making opportunity there. Now the last thing I want to talk about today is investing in some road to the knockouts because head of people, I've had a few people ask me, yo, Nate, Thomas Muller or Phil Foden or Val Verde, these guys, their clubs are about to basically achieve with one win today or tomorrow and Tuesday or Wednesday. They are about to achieve the like unlock the, the knockouts and put themselves in the knockouts and unlock that upgrade, right? I just want to talk about this a little bit because some people, based on the old way they used to update road to the knockout cards and upgrade them in game after they hit and upgrade criteria. It used to be within a couple of days time, right? On the weekend after maybe it was Thursday night, maybe it was Friday. Sometimes they did on Saturday mornings. EA, which we love the communication here. It's just a little bit different. EA have been very specific in telling us when these upgrades are going to go live. So here's the example, right? Like I was saying, Thomas Muller, Phil Foden and Val Verde, right? Madrid, City and Bayern are all winning their groups right now and they have not lost the game yet. If they win a game at any team that is on nine points, basically Club Bruges on nine points as well. How did I miss that? That's crazy. Gee, and they haven't given up a goal. Oh my gosh, Club Bruges killing it. That's crazy. Anyways, if Bayern or any of the teams that are on nine points would win their game today, that basically locks them in to the knockout round because they will have 12 points in their group, right? And basically, if you have 12 points, you're a shoe in, right? So they've basically gotten one of the two upgrade potential, you know, the two paths to an upgrade, right? You get a wins upgrade if your team gets two wins out of the next three. And if you qualify, you get an upgrade. So they would kind of get that qualification upgrade, you know, checked off the list if they get a win today and then we get their first of two wins needed in the last three matchdays. But here's the fine print on the small text on the FAQ page. Qualification upgrades will go live after the group stages have been completed starting Friday, November 4th. So any of these teams like for Muller or for Foden, like Bayern could lock in their spot in the knockouts today with or tomorrow with the win. They play tomorrow and Wednesday, right? But technically, this card's not going to get upgraded for that until the 4th of November, like literally three and a half weeks from now. That's a bit of a buzzkill, right? I mean, if they knock, if they check out and get into the knockout rounds and they, you know, basically achieve that, you would feel like, hey, EA Sports, let's upgrade the card sooner than that, please. But that's not the way they're doing it this year. The qualification upgrades will start on the 4th. Now, the first upgrades, as they have said here, will go live on October 21st. Now, I just did a bit of research and figured this out really fast because there's only one reason why this date shows as October 21st, because in fact, as we said, nobody will be able to play a second game until October 25th. That's matchday number five for the Europa competitions, Champions League, Europa League and the Conference League. The difference is there's a rescheduled game that happens on the 20th of October. Arsenal play PSG, PSV. It was a postponed game from earlier on. And the only reason why this date is October 21st is because on that week, if Martin Odegaard and the Arsenal boys win the first two games, right, if they win their game this week on the 13th and if they win on the 20th, nobody else is playing on the 20th except Arsenal, then he will get upgraded on the 21st to be the only card. And then the week after that would be, as it says here, it would be, they will go live at the end of each week after all the European matches have concluded starting Friday, October 21st. So the next Friday, the 28th, that's when you would see basically everybody else's upgrades come in from matchday, basically matchday five. It's just weird because Arsenal have this postponed game, which makes this date 21st seem like it's pretty soon we're going to get upgrades. But in reality, it's not actually going to be until the 28th of October when we will see a majority of the cards upgraded for their performances. That was a bit confusing to think through and look through right there, but really what it means is we're not getting upgrades for a while. So with that being said, I do still think that if people see today and hear that, you know, oh, Bayern or Madrid or whoever has won enough games to get enough points to qualify themselves for the knockout round, I do think people are going to look to invest in some of these cards. But like I said, we're going to have supply today, most likely either today or tomorrow. I would expect some supply and some downturns hit the market a little bit on some of these cards with that supply. So maybe a guy like Muller or a Foden or a Valverde or nobody from club Brood got a card. But you know, any of those teams are on nine points right now in their group. Absolutely would be cards that you want to watch because they could go up in price a little bit with that, you know, upgrade kind of in line and, you know, people being, you know, ready to see that card upgrade. Although as it says on the website, the upgrade is not going to happen just yet. I think people will assume that oh, Bayern is going to be in the knockouts. They won, right? So maybe I'm jinxing them right now. You would think that they would be able to win their game tomorrow. But, you know, people I think will see that they have clenched that spot and they will go out and buy the card. So that's kind of what I would say is a little bit of an investing opportunity for a short-term hold. But again, I'm just being very careful with anything that I do right now on this market and on this game with my coins. I'm keeping it to quick flips only and I'm just doing, you know, kind of light stuff and just trading and getting it out of cars really fast. I don't want to get stuck like a lot of people did with heroes on the weekend when the market got destroyed. Whenever EA starts doing this compensation, I want to make sure that I have coins liquid and available ready to go so that I can try to take advantage of the situation when it arises, whether it's on the ones to watch cards, informs, whatever it may be. I want to make sure that I have coins ready to go so I can try to take advantage of that supply, trade in it and make some coins through it. So that's kind of how I'm feeling on the market right now. Icons are absolutely looking like a decent place to trade. Just got to learn the prices, learn the fluctuations because people are definitely using these cards, man. Like, you know, this Roberto Carlos was selling at like 740 yesterday. Right now he's kind of low, but it doesn't look like low enough around to buy it. I sold one of these Loms on Saturday for 660, but it doesn't look that good right now. Manne was down. What's his price right now is Manne like above 550, 560, 570, 564, 550. So, you know, you're going to have fluctuations on these cards and you're going to be able to trade with them. And we are going to plan to do a little bit more of a trading method video here in the coming days. I know a lot of you guys are looking to make coins with fluctuation trading, and I want to take a look and talk through fluctuation trading with you guys really, really quick to end off this video.  We are getting a dynamic duo leak. The next one, of course, we had the Suarez and the Abenba center back card. We now have this one right here, Rodrigo and Jack Harrison, which again, these are predicted stats, by the way, not confirmed stats. But if EA juice these cards up enough, I like this dynamic duo opportunity, especially for, you know, if you're a Leeds fan or if you have a Premier League side, these SBCs were pretty cheap for the Marseille SBC they put out. So, I would have hoped that these are going to be pretty cheap as well. And I like this dynamic duo, this thought process. I like what they're doing these SBCs so far. Don't know when this is going to drop because the other dynamic duo is still available. But that is our next leak. And that's kind of the only leak that we have right now at the moment heading into a Tuesday on FIFA 23. Fingers crossed for some compensation and some news because honestly, I just want answers, man. That's all I want from EA Sports. I want some answers and keep dropping good content because they've been doing a pretty good job at that in the past couple of days in this RTK promo. So, if you enjoyed the video today, smash a thumbs up on a comment below if you have any questions and subscribe if you're new. It's been Nate with the Count and I'll catch you guys later. Peace out.


My name is Paul Reed. I work at Netflix. There it is. I spend most of my days thinking about incident management, incident analysis, retrospectives, post-mortems, blamelessness. Who here does retros after their incidents? Yeah, good. Okay, well we're going to talk about it in a different context today. So our story starts in Daily City, California, beautiful Daily City, which has objectively one of the best in and outs there because it's also co-located with a Krispy Kreme.  I picked someone up at the airport and we did a burger run and it was time to go home. This is a satellite photo of the same in and out there. And we're all ready to go and I, of course, make a left turn because we're going to get back on the highway. That's on the other side of the street. This was the intersection that I roll up to and, you know, seems like a normal day.  And then as I make that turn, coming up behind me, which is certainly unexpected, is a police. Now, by the way, this is actually the Daily City PD officer who pulled me over. The reason I put his photo in the deck is because he has the best name ever. I'm not kidding you. His name's Officer Directo of the Daily City PD. So he pulls me over and he's not, do you know what you did wrong? None of that. He's like, did you see the sign? What sign? He's like, license and registration, please. So he runs all of that fun information and in the next 15 minutes he comes back with a ticket. And I was like, what just happened? I was having burgers and now I owe the county $238. Like, this is not a good afternoon. So we're going to go back to that intersection. I'm going to be quiet. I want you to look at that intersection and see if you see anything weird. So how many signs did I supposedly not obey? It turns out there's two right turn only signs that are supposedly in your field of vision. But I was like, this seems weird to me. Why are there two signs? Are they both about the same intersection? So if you actually look at both signs and zoom in, you'll notice they have a different font. They have different dimensions. They look different. And I thought, well, that's kind of strange. And I had the question, well, what should a sign look like? A right turn only sign look like. So then I went down this rabbit hole of like the manual on uniform traffic control devices that shows you what signs should look like and where they should be placed. And about 20 hours later of my life that I will never get back, I found out that that sign has not been street legal for 15 years, which I thought was kind of interesting. And that's the regulation. R11 California R has been superseded by R53R. But then there's a question. All right. Well, the signs are weird. But then let's look at this right turn only sign. There's markings on the ground into that parking lot. By the way, this is the DMV, the Daily City DMV, that have you go that way. So that's also odd. Some people shouted out the tree. Well, the picture on the right, I took about six months later in the dark and you'll notice that the tree is obscuring even more of the signs. So the question is, who's responsible for making sure that we can see that tree? Is it the city? Is it someone else? And finally, these street markings are kind of odd. You can see that one where like there was a right turn arrow painted and then somebody's like, no, no, no, we'll paint some other, you know, arrow. You also notice there's no double yellow line. So it wouldn't occur to you to not turn left. So there's three sort of takeaways. When I rolled up to that intersection and when the cop rolled up to that intersection, we both had a view of what the other person was thinking. And neither of them was correct. So in an incident when that happens, the situation may not be as it seems. When you're conducting an incident analysis, you want to do that as closely after the incident as you possibly can. If I had not returned later in the day to take the photos that I took, I probably wouldn't have the data that I needed to show that something was wrong. And finally, I love Dr. Decker's quote. If it made sense to one person, it's probably going to make sense to other people too. And I actually watched a bunch of people turn left at that intersection when I was taking photos so that I could go to traffic court. So of course, my case that day was the only case that the judge did not make a ruling on. She said, I'm going to take this case under advisement. I was like, oh God, I don't know what that means. That's bad. But were they going to take these arguments about the new view? Well, boom. They did. So friends, practice those incident analysis skills because you'll be surprised where they come in handy. I'm Paul Reed. Jay Paul Reed on Twitter. That's all I got.


Lipton Tea and Lipton Soup present Inner Sanctum Mystery. Good evening, gentle friends of Inner Sanctum. Welcome through the creaking door for another soothing half hour of sweetness and light. Oh, I've learned a new trick. Would one of you like to step up here and be soared in half? What? No volunteer. Well, maybe you're right. The first part, the sawing in half, that's easy, but the second part, the putting together again, I'm still not very good at that. Mr. Host, how can you joke about such things? Are you trying to get our listeners in a mood for enjoying themselves? That's it, Mary. Well, jokes like that certainly won't put people in a good mood. Here's a much better way to do it. Just serve folks a piping hot cup of Lipton Tea, and they'll be in a good mood in a minute. For Lipton's is the password to pleasure. It's tea at its delicious best. Thanks to Lipton's brisk flavor. Brisk, you know, is the tea expert's own word for the fresh, lively, full-bodied flavor of Lipton Tea. Unlike ordinary, dull-tasting teas, Lipton's is never flat. It's always spirited and satisfying. Try it real soon, and get the extra enjoyment of Lipton's wonderful brisk flavor. What does a man think of when there's murder in the air? The close presence of death. Does it have matter and substance? Does it generate unseen light waves that touch a man's subconscious, or unheard sound waves that speak to him when he sleeps? Well, let's listen to I Walk in the Night, written by Amel Tepperman, with Larry Haynes, the role of Peter Lang, to tell you this story himself. I don't know if it was the ringing of the doorbell that awoke me, driving me back to consciousness out of a deep, heavy sleep. I felt groggy, as if I'd been drugged. My eyes were so heavy, so hard to keep open. That infernal ringing, I stumbled out into the hall. Mernersville, my wife, their opposite mind. I knew the door would be locked. We'd quarreled last night while the Jetsons were visiting from the house next door. Merners had made a scene. She went to a room and locked herself in. Please, please wake up in there! As I stumbled down the hall of the front door, I recognized Phil Jetsons voice. Phil and Henrietta lived in the house next door, just across the lawn. All right. All right, I'm coming. Just a minute. I can't get this open. Oh, thank heaven you woke up, Peter. I thought you'd never hear me. What's wrong, Phil? What's that poker for? Henrietta saw a prowler come out of this house. A prowler? What's the matter with you, Pete? You look groggy. Wake up! I don't know. I feel as if I've been doped. What's this about prowler? Henrietta saw I'm climbing out of Merners' window. She yelled at me and I grabbed the poker and came running out. A poker? What was the matter with you? Didn't you hear me? A man was in Merners' room just now. Great Scott. Merners alone in there. Come on. Merners. Merners, are you all right? Open the door. She doesn't answer. Phil, are you sure the prowler came out of this room? Yes. They ran around the house and got away. Look, Pete, have you got a key to this door? Oh, it's bolted on the inside. We've got to break it down. Come on. Put your shoulder to it. Once more now. Where's the light switch? Oh, here. I've got it. Better not come in, Pete. Oh, let me in. I've got to see. Merners. Take it easy, Pete. Oh, burn it. Strangled. Strangled to death. Burn it. Look at the black and blue marks on the throat. This chain on her neck, it's broken. It was her locket. But when I gave her last Christmas, the killer must have taken it with him. And, see, here, her fingernails, there's bits of skin under them. She must have struggled and scratched the killer's face or hands. Why, Phillip? Why should anyone want to kill her? Then began the long torture of the investigation, detective swarming over the house, men and derby hats examining the body of my wife, measuring the room, searching for fingerprints. And finally, more men who came and carried her away forever. Throw it all, Phillip. Henrietta sat with me, trying to give what comfort they could. Oh, Peter, dear, please talk to us.  It won't bring Murna back to life. Henrietta's right, Pete. You've got to get a hold of yourself. I know. I know, but... I can't stop thinking about it. Those marks on her throat, the torn chain, the locket pawn... Look here, Pete. There's something we have to talk about.  Yes, yes, Phil. There's a police inspector in Murna's room right now. Oh, Brian is his name. He'll be coming in soon to question you.  I don't get you. It would look bad for you. For me? Oh, well, what do you mean? Phil, you don't say that I... Suddenly, I caught my breath. My right hand in my bathrobe pocket had touched something cold. Phil and Henrietta both stared at me. Peter, what's wrong? Phil. Phil, look what I found in my pocket. What is it? Look. A locket? It's Burnett's locket. The one that was torn from my throat. Phil. Phil, how could this get in my pocket? Here, give me that quick. But, Phil. Give it to me. President's, Murna's locket all right. You'll recognize it, Henrietta? Yes. What are you going to do with it, Phil? Get rid of it quick. Out this open window. Well, if the police find it out there, they'll think the killer dropped it. But, Phil, it was in my pocket. What are you looking at, Phil? Your hand, Peter. What? Your left hand. I looked down on my left hand. There are my wrists. Those three long gashes where the skin had been scraped. As if by the fingernails of a woman fighting for her life. Phil, do you think I could have killed it? Nonsense. I don't believe it. You could never do a thing like that, Pete. Couldn't I? How can you be sure? How can I be sure? Peter, please. Don't talk like that.  Phil and I know you can't be like that. I don't know. Maybe I got up in my sleep and killed Mano without ever knowing it consciously. After all, I did have that quarrel with the last night. Cut it, Pete. Here comes O'Brien, the detective. I hope I'm not intruding. Oh, no. It's all right, Inspector. Come in, O'Brien. Mr. Lang is very upset. The shock. Harris, I understand. Believe me, Mr. Lang, you have my deepest sympathy. I wouldn't bother you at all at a time like this, but... Inspector O'Brien was a pink-cheeked, cherub-faced, chubby little man. But his eyes were cold and blue and restless. It kept jumping from Phil to Henrietta to me as he fired his questions at us. Mr. Lang, one more thing. I understand you had a small party here last night. Oh, no, no. It wasn't a party. Just Phil and Henrietta and Ted Hale. Ted Hale? Yes, it was Mona's cousin. Oh, I see. Uh, this Ted Hale, a cousin of your wife. Pardon me, Inspector. Yes, Mr. Johnson. Peter is too easygoing and good-natured to tell you about Ted Hale. But, as Peter's attorney, it's my duty to give you certain information. Oh, go ahead. Mona, Mrs. Lang, owned a considerable property in her own right. Recently, I drew a will at her request. In it, she leaves a sizable sum to Ted Hale. Oh, I just thought of something. What is it, Henrietta? Well, Peter was so groggy when he woke up. That's right. He looked as if he'd been drugged. Well, don't you remember last night? Ted Hale went in the kitchen to mix the last round of drinks. Henrietta, that's ridiculous. On the contrary, it's quite important. Now, tell me, this Ted Hale, what does he do for a living? Well, he works for me in my brokerage office. Please, Mona, I gave him a job as my confidential secretary. I suppose you tell me where Mr. Ted Hale lives. I think I'll have a talk with him.  Let O'Brien follow up his lead. Phil, I can't let him address Ted Hale. He didn't kill Mona. I did. I must have the lock. He scratches. It's not fair to Ted. As your attorney, I won't let you strap yourself in the electric chair.  Henrietta, do you mind going back to our house by yourself? Of course not. I'm going to sleep right here in the living room on this couch in case Peter needs me tonight. On my bed in the dark, I kept seeing a thousand pictures. Mona, her face modeled with strangulation. Phil, always so sure of himself. Henrietta, worried and frightened.  Going off to question Ted Hale. I must have been close to dozing off when I heard the doorbell faintly as if in a dream. I tossed about in bed for a moment or two. And then I heard the voices in the living room. Phil's cold and harsh. And someone else's, loud and angry and frightened. I got out of bed and opened the door. I went down the hall to the living room. I had to know who was in there arguing with Phil. It was Ted Hale. Ted, what are you doing here? Phil phoned me. He told me about Mona. I called him up, told him O'Brien would be coming for him. I suggested he come over here and talk it over with me. Pete, don't let them arrest me. You gotta help me. Help you?  Well, I'm not sure. Pete, what? I was here last night, you know. When you had that fight with Mona, what do you mean? If I'm arrested, it says I had a motive. But what about you, Pete? You were always quarreling with Mona. Look here, Ted, if you're threatening me... I only want you to help me, Pete. Don't let them arrest me. Hide me. Hide me out till this blows over or until they get the real killer. I think Ted is right, Pete. We should help them. But where? I'll handle it. You have a dark room fixed up in the cellar, haven't you? Yes. He's caught in the air and let Ted hold up for a day or two. Nobody will think of looking for him in this house. Poor Peter. Seems to be in a daze half the time. Yes, his trouble is that when he's awake, he's half asleep, and when he's asleep, he's half awake. Now wonder he can't sleep well. He seems to be such an honest person, he can't lie easy.  Well, I just hope they know something about hospitality, Mary. Oh, I'm sure they do. Why, everybody knows that the proper way to treat guests is to serve them something delicious. For example, when guests drop in at my house, the first thing I do is put on the tea kettle. Most before they have their wraps off, I have my best tea service out, and I'm serving them some of my fragrant fresh-made cake and a cup of heartwarming Lipton tea. For no matter what time of day or night guests arrive, there's nothing like wonderful Lipton tea to make them relax and feel at home. Yes, Lipton's brisk flavor is so lively and full-bodied and satisfying, it just naturally hits the spot with everybody. In fact, I always say, whenever you want to serve your friends or your family a grand, refreshing drink, make it tea. And make it tea at its delicious best. Lipton tea. Now let's get back to our sleepwalker. There's no telling what he might have done while we were talking about tea. Now let's see, where were we? Peter and Phil were going to hide Ted Hale in the cellar. Now listen to me carefully, Peter. If Ted Hale is arrested and talks, or Brian will learn about the quarrel you had with Myrna last night, he'll start digging into things that won't look so good for you. No, Phil, wait. I know you're trying to help me, but if I did it, if I did kill Myrna, then he was trying to protect me. It isn't right. I'm a dangerous man. But you can't brush it off like that.  Cut that out. We've got business to attend to. Now here's my plan. We'll let Ted stay here tomorrow. And then tomorrow night, I'll smuggle him out of the country, get him passage on a freighter to South America, baby. You think he'll go? Sure, he'll go. He's scared stiff. But we'll need money, lots of money. Now how much have you got in the safe at the office? About ten thousand cash, but there's a batch of negotiable bonds. They'll do. I'll go down to the office the first thing in the morning and get them out of the safe. You had the combination? Yes, you gave it to me when you gave me your power of attorney, remember? Oh, yes. Now don't you worry about a thing. Oh, here, take this powder. It's just one of the blown mines that Henrietta uses will help you get to sleep. By tomorrow morning, everything will be fixed up. Fine. It was almost dawn when Phil left. And it must have been hours later, close to noontime, when I felt myself being roughly shaken out of a heavy, troubled sleep. Pete, Pete, wake up. What? Hey, wake up. Come on, snap out of it. Oh, Phil, gosh, I feel groggy. What was in that powder you gave me? Never mind the powder. Get your eyes open. I've got something to tell you. Phil, what's wrong with you? Phil, what's wrong? What happened? Listen to me carefully, Pete. I went down to the office before business hours this morning and opened the safe to get the money out. Yes? The safe is empty. Empty? The securities are gone. It can't be. Who else had the combination besides you and me? Only Ted Hale. Oh, do you think that... I'll bet you a dollar to a donut is gone. Come on, let's check. Look, Pete, there's a light in the dark room. You must have got up early and beat me to it to the safe. Ted, Ted, you in there? Always the optimist, huh? Come on, open it up. Ted! Good heavens. Ted Hale hadn't gone anywhere. He was lying there on the cot.  It had been bashed in while he slept with a long-handled coal shovel which lay there alongside the cot. Great Scott. He's been murdered. We stood there in a narrow dark room for a night and we looked at each other. There was a strange gleam in Fo's eyes. I tried to read the meaning of that gleam, but he averted his eyes too quickly. He dropped his gaze to my hands. I saw what he was looking at. My hands were black and grimy with coal dust. And on the brimy coal-blackened handle of the shovel, it was a fresh set of fingerprints. Phil, did I kill him?  The same as Merna? Phil, I can't stand it being a murderer. I'm going to get myself up. You'll do nothing of a kind. If you did it, Pete, you're not responsible. But you do think I did it. And Merna too? I don't know. I don't know what to say. Just think, Phil.  Or Henrietta. There's no telling what I might do. Robbers. No, no, Phil. It's hard to believe, but there's the proof. I'm a murderer. I'm dangerous. There's only one thing to do. I won't let you do it. What else is left? Come on. I'm going to help you hide Ted's body. How much further, Phil? Oh, there it is. There's the bridge up ahead. Okay. Help me with it. We had the body of Ted Hale in a sack with a pair of hundred-pound dumbbells to weight it down. Merna's funeral took place the next morning. And I had to endure the condolences of friends and business associates. But Phil and Henrietta stood by me all through it. It'll be over soon, Peter. Then you can rest. Keep your chin up. I'll get rid of the stragglers. Look, look who just came in. Where? Inspector O'Brien, what does he want, Phil? Take it easy, take it easy. Let me do the talking. I came to pay my respects, Mr. Lang. Oh, well thank you, Inspector. No trace of Ted Hale, is there, Inspector? I'm afraid not, Mr. Judson. I'm combing the city for him, but I'm afraid he's got clean away. You see, it was marvelous to see how calmly Phil could toss to O'Brien about Ted Hale. Knowing all the time just where the body was. Under that bridge. I glanced at Henrietta. She was watching Phil, too. You know what I think, Mr. Judson? I think Ted Hale will never be caught. I have a very funny feeling that he's dead. Later that afternoon, I took a taxi cab. And I went down to police headquarters. And I asked to see Inspector O'Brien. Glad to see you, Mr. Lang. You're looking a little better this afternoon. I feel better, Inspector. I feel better because I've come to an important decision. Oh, yeah? Inspector, I've decided to tell you something that'll startle you. That's pretty hard to startle an old hand in my business.  All right. Inspector, Ted Hale didn't kill Mona. I killed her. That is, I think I killed her.  Don't you know? It sounds crazy, doesn't it, but I assure you, I'm perfectly sane. Just a second now.  If you killed somebody, you know it. No, not in this case, Inspector. You see, I think I did it in my sleep. Both times. Mona and Ted Hale, too. Hold on now. I'll get someone to take notes. As opposed to you starting the beginning. I told him the whole story. How Philip awakened me. And we found Mona strangled. The groggy drug feeling I'd had. How Ted Hale had tried to blackmail me. And how Philip awakened me once more and we'd gone down to the cellar. And found Ted with his head bashed in. I talked for a solid hour. I'm glad you came to see me, Mr. Lang. Glad you've told me all this. You must have had a hard time reaching a decision to come here. Yes, it was hard, Inspector. Phil wanted me to go away. It would have been so easy to go away and let him take care of things.  You needn't worry, Mr. Lang. There won't be any more killings. Not if I'm safely in jail. You're not going to jail. You're going home. What? And those notes the stenographer has taken, Mr. Lang. I have almost enough material to convict the real murder. I need just one more thing. Now, you go home and wait. Don't worry. You mean I didn't kill murder and Ted? How you just go along home and take it easy. I'm back at home now. It's two hours since I left O'Brien's office, and I've taken the time to write down this full account, just as I gave it to the stenographer. As I write now, I can look across the lawn to Phil Judson's house. Five minutes ago, I saw Inspector O'Brien and two detectives go in there. The front door is opening now. I can see them coming out. O'Brien first, then the two detectives. With Phil between them. We've got handcuffs on Phil. And here comes Henrietta. She's running across the lawn, coming here. Peter! Peter! Coming, Henrietta! Peter, they've taken Phil away. Yes, I saw it off the window. Oh, darling. Everything went right. Exactly as we planned it. Hold me tight, Peter. Tight. We can be together now, forever and ever.  I know. And you were clever, Peter. So clever. The hardest part was getting Phil to cooperate. But I knew he'd do anything for a friend.  He stepped right in and took over. You should have seen O'Brien when I told him the story. I could tell exactly what he was thinking. Here's a poor innocent sap whose best friend is framing him, giving him drugs and then making him think he commits murder. Oh, Peter. As soon as he's convicted I'll be free and we can go away together. All right. But you'll have to cancel that trip. Both of you. O'Brien. You... You heard... what we said? Sure did, every word. Remembered my office, Mr. Lang, when I told you I only needed one more thing to clinch the case against the murderer? Well, this was it. I faked the arrest of Mr. Judson. Then I sneaked back to see what you'd do about it. You did plenty. Well, Pete certainly ruined a perfect crime by talking too much, which all goes to show that it's not wise to kill in town. Mercy. People do go out of their way to get themselves into trouble, Mr. Host. I'm really surprised at Henrietta, though. For being a partner in crime, Mary. No. For not being a partner to her husband. Most women, you know, take great pride in looking out for their husband's happiness. You mean like mending the bullet holes in their shirts? Oh, Mr. Host. There are lots of better ways than that to keep a husband happy. For example, when your husband comes home from work, give him the refreshment of a brimming cup of piping hot Lipton Tea. Lipton Tea makes a wonderfully pleasing drink at mealtime or any time, because Lipton's is such a grand tea. So deliciously different, more flavorful and full-bodied. If you've been forgetting to get it, why not jot down Lipton's on tomorrow's grocery list now? Remember, Lipton Tea always meets with favor, because Lipton Tea gives you brisk flavor. And now, friends, a parting word of advice. If you ever wake up and think that you've murdered someone in your sleep, don't go to the police. Now, just take another powder, brother, and go back to sleep. Oh, by the way, this month's inner sanctum mystery novel is The Innocent Mrs. Duff by Elizabeth Sanxi Holdings. And next week, the makers of Lipton Tea and Lipton Soup will bring you another inner sanctum mystery directed by Hyman Brown and called Accident. Does the wind whistling in your ears frighten you, folks? Oh, now don't be scared, because when you're pushed down an empty elevator shaft and you hit the bottom, nothing ever can frighten you again. It's just an accident. And you'll learn all the mystery of it if you're listening to Inner Sanctum next week. Until then, good night. Pleasant dreams? For a wonderful soup, be sure to try Lipton's Noodle Soup. Lipton's is the extra delicious noodle soup that folks rave about on account of all those tender golden egg noodles and that honest-to-goodness chickeny flavor. Tastes like homemade soup that you'd spend hours in making, yet Lipton's is ready in a jiffy. Lipton's Noodle Soup makes costs less and makes lots more than ordinary canned soups. So get some Lipton's Noodle Soup tomorrow. And tune in next week for another Inner Sanctum Mystery. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.