My dear Liz,
Thank you for your last letter, glad you are keeping fit and so am I.
I just got a letter from your College saying you will get a degree conferred on you on September 12th and parents if on Earth will be welcome.
Well Liz this I got to see and Charlie says the same, but the letter says too Terran Authority will not give a permit to visit Earth just for this, so I wangled on to a Delegation which is coming to discuss trade with the Department of Commerce. Charlie and I will be arriving on Earth on August 24th.
Liz it is good to think I shall be seeing you again after four years. There are some things about your future I meant to write to Professor M'Clare about, but now I shall be able to talk it over direct. Please give him my regards.
Be seeing you Lizzie girl, your affectionate Dad
J. X. Lee.
Dear old Dad, after all these years farming with a weather-maker on a drydust planet I want to see his face the first time he sees real rain.
Hell's fires and shades of darkness, I shan't be there!
M'Clare says, "Your father wrote to me saying that he will be arriving on Earth on 24th August. I take it your letter says the same. I came on a dispatch boat; you can go back on it."