Dear Sirs: Let me begin by clearing up any possible misconception in your minds, wherever you are. The collective by which I address you in the title above is neither patronizing nor jocose but an exact industrial term in use among professional thieves. It is, I am reliably given to understand, the technical argot for those who engage in your particular branch of the boost; i.e., burglars who rob while the tenants are absent, in contrast to hot slough prowlers, those who work while the occupants are home. Since the latter obviously require an audacity you do not possess, you may perhaps suppose that I am taunting you as socially inferior. Far from it; I merely draw an etymological distinction, hoping that specialists and busy people like you will welcome such precision in a layman. Above all, disabuse yourselves of any thought that I propose to vent moral indignation at your rifling my residence, to whimper over the loss of a few objets d'art, or to shame you into rectitude. My object, rather, is to alert you to an aspect or two of the affair that could have the gravest implications for you, far beyond the legal sanctions society might inflict. You have unwittingly set in motion forces so malign, so vindictive, that it would be downright inhumane of me not to warn you about them. Quite candidly, fellows, I wouldn't be in your shoes for all the rice in China.

As you've doubtless forgotten the circumstances in the press of more recent depredations, permit me to recapitulate them briefly. Sometime on Saturday evening, August 22nd, while my family and I were dining at the Hostaria dell 'Orso, in Rome, you jimmied a window of our home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and let yourselves into the premises. Hastening to the attic, the temperature of which was easily hotter than the Gold Coast, you proceeded to mask the windows with a fancy wool coverlet, some khaki pants, and the like, and to ransack the innumerable boxes and barrels stored there. What you were looking for (unless you make a hobby of collecting old tennis rackets and fly screens) eludes me, but to judge from phonograph records scattered about a fumed oak Victrola, you danced two tangos and a paso doble, which must have been fairly enervating in that milieu. You then descended one story, glommed a television set from the music room -- the only constructive feature of your visit, by the way -- and, returning to the ground floor, entered the master bedroom. From the curio cabinet on its south wall and the bureaus beneath, you abstracted seventeen ivory, metal, wood, and stone sculptures of Oriental and African origin, two snuffboxes, and a jade handled magnifying glass. Rummaging through a stack of drawers nearby, you unearthed an antique French chess set in ivory and sandalwood, which, along with two box Kodaks, you added to your haul. Then, having wrapped the lot in an afghan my dog customarily slept on, you lammed out the front door, considerately leaving it open for neighbors to discover.