In a way this is a phony. A lot of the talk I report was in languages I am not on speaking terms with, so even with the training I’ve had there is no use pretending that here it is, word for word. But this is what happened, and since I had to know what was going on to earn my keep, Nero Wolfe put it in English for me every chance he got. For the times when it had to be on the fly, and pretty sketchy, I have filled it in as well as I could. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to tell it at all, but I hated to skip it. ARCHIE GOODWIN