Mail Call part 2

Lily pondered for a moment as she let the information process in her mind. Then she looked at Harold and asked, "So to make this more efficient should we not investigate these charities and list the approved ones and the unapproved ones such as a real orphanage verses a sham orphanage? I think this would improve Lady Elizabeth's public approval while allowing Mr. Sung the information to deal with any charlatans who want to take advantage of her?" Lily looked at Harold in hopes he might see some truth in her words.

"That is an excellent idea. We do have some which we know are very legitimate but new ones ask for money all the time." Harold said. "Now, the easy part first. " He pulled out two envelopes. Held up one and turned it over. It had a wax seal with stars on it. "Anything with this seal is from The Merlin Society. As you are probably aware they are well known for their charitable work. Lady Elizabeth is a member. The Merlin Society always gets what they ask for. If the donation is at the givers discretion then it is the top tier donation which is given."

"Now, this envelope." It also had a wax seal but this time it was of a P and M. "This is from the Acuitus. As you might be aware that is the primary religion of the Eldren and Lady Elizabeth is a devote member of that faith. Anything from them we give. However," Harold used a letter opener and opened the envelope, then unfolded the letter. "The donation requests are in English. This particular piece of mail, is not, it is in Latin. Therefore it can go on the pile with the things for Lady Elizabeth to read herself. The church though always asks for specific amounts. They get whatever they ask for. So, those can go into a give pile. Any questions so far?"

Lily looked at the mail and on the table and the baskets she set up for the invitations. She let the thoughts in her mind process in he mind as she considered how to make this easier to work with later on when she had to teach a replacement for herself. Back in school she remembered how the other girls struggled to deal with some school courses since the new teachers preferred to introduce a new manner of teaching while the older teachers didn't want to alter the program. This was often a heated topic for the adults who wanted to argue over recognition while leaving many confused students to their own devices. Lily had learned from her father that its easier to organize your work to make it easier to process. She envisioned a shoe cupboard but modified for mail and each cubby would have a basket holding specific letters that are labeled. Then Lily looked at Harold as she asked, "Would I be out of line if I were to request a modified shoe cupboard for mail baskets. We can have one large one for the incoming mail and label it "INBOX". Then we can sort out the new letters to the proper baskets based on type of invitations, real charity, fake charity, to be investigated charity, The Merlin Society and Acuitus. In each basket we can include a sample reply to copy as well as the instructions for each group of letters. I know that this is important and if I have to train someone in the future to do this I prefer to make it easy to jump into since it will be simplified. All I would need is the modified cupboard, the baskets and a place to put them in. Perhaps we can make an office in an empty room?" Lily raised her eyebrows in hopes of approval.

Harold nodded at thought for a moment. "I will have to check with Lady Elizabeth but one of the sitting rooms is next to her office. That would likely make the perfect office for you. Getting a shoe cupboard should be of no issue." Harold paused and pulled out one letter that said. The Paris Home for Desolate Children (in both French and English) on the letterhead.

"There are at least fifty orphanages in Paris and several hundred throughout France. This is one that could go on the investigate pile. The address, being in Paris, should be easy to look in on." Harold explained. "Any from outside of Paris, can go in the discard pile. They might be legitimate, but investigating them would be far to difficult."

Lily nodded as she made some notes in her book and replied, "Understood. I can make a list of approved addresses for each basket so they can be referred to as needed." Lily then had a thought since the sending of money needed to be approved anyway. She asked, "Just checking in case you have a different system to work with but should we not have a check sheet to mark who wrote the reply, the times the letter written and sent, amount of money and who approved the expense to keep track of such important letters? I am thinking it would odd to send out to a charity twice in a short time and they might expect this on a regular basis. If this is not kept track of it may look like Lady Elizabeth's purse strings are to open for the ill mannered. Oh and just out of curiosity should the discarded letters be looked at in case one of Lady Elizabeth's staff is sending a secret message through secret means?" Lily was ready to take more notes on this topic.

When Lily mentioned the check sheet, Harold nodded. "Wait just a moment." He left and came back a few moments later with a ledger book. "This is the ledger to keep track of charity donations." The man opened the book and pointed to a blank page. "This is the page to do today's donations on. I have been doing the letters so there was not a need to keep track of such things but you are certainly welcome to design a system for that."

Harold pulled out five envelopes. "These are from individuals requesting money. There are seven people we give to. The rest we do not." He opened the ledger to the front and took out a sheet of paper, handing it to Lily. "On here is the seven people. One if them is Clement, the errand boy. So, any requests from him are approved. Any new requests need to be investigated. However we do not approved a Mr. Williams Sable, ever."

Lily wrote her notes down and as Harold listed his "Do's" and "Don'ts" in the process. She nodded as he added a few more notes to make it easier to put the mail into the correct categories. Then she asked, "So I assume that Mr. Williams Sable has overstepped his position with Lady Elizabeth? If so I amazed he did not earn the ill will of Mr. Sung."

"Your assumption is correct, though Mr. Sable has managed to avoid Mr. Sung by being off the continent for a while now. Last word he was some where in Africa." Harold explained. "If

He took out two more envelopes, One was marked "Westminster Hospital, London." The other "Bartholomew Hospital"."

"I assume you know the hospitals in London. If not there is a list..." He pulled out a separate sheet of paper. "Here. This also gives the amount we contribute to each one. Guys hospital, which is in the worst part of London, gets the biggest contribution. Westminster, which is run primarily for the wealthy, gets the least." Harold opened the paper and pointed to a line with a list of French Hospitals and contributions. "Under this line are a list of hospitals in Paris. It works the same way for those as well."

"Now we come to these last three pieces. Do you happen to know Russian or any additional languages?" Harold asked

Lily took the notes diligently till she was asked if she could speak Russian. She made an oops expression as she heard the word Russian. She was a bit embarrassed that she didn't pursue additional languages in school since it didn't appeal to her at the time. Since she was trying to limit her social meetings to hide her werewolf secret, she only learned the minimum of three languages. She sheepishly replied, "Sorry I know learned the Queens English, French and Spanish. I didn't plan to have a job like this. Will that count against me?" Lily looked a bit nervous.

"Not at all," Harold said, sensing her sudden nervousness. "Anything sent not in a language you know just give to me. I will handle those. That covers the mail that has come today. " He thought for a moment. "Now, I will go over what didn't come today. Anything from any of the Magic Guild's can go directly to Lady Elizabeth. They are never asking for money. Its usually Guild business. Anything for Mr. Sung can just be given to him. The same is true for all the team members. Anything from the Acuitus that isn't a donation request you can also go to Lady Elizabeth. Now, about correspondence to and from the staff," Harold looked at Lily. "You mentioned looking at the discarded letters to see of the staff is sending secret messages. I actually think that is an excellent idea. Most would be in French or English. However, Greta's letters would likely be in German. I do not suspect her of anything of the sort as she has been with the Ellington's for decades. But you are welcomed to go through the discarded mail, if you see anything suspicious please tell Lady Elizabeth, Mr. Sung or myself. I will let them both know I have given you permission to do so."

Lily smiled and nodded before she jotted down her notes to figure how many baskets and the space required for the mail baskets. Each basket would be properly labeled for the type of letters in it, each basket would have the instructions on how to handle the letters including a list of addresses to help match them properly and any letters requiring a reply will have a sample letter included to copy. Then on a clipboard she would have a record of when the letters received, who it was from and when it was replied to in order to prevent from writing the same letter twice and sending to much money to charities or replies to invitations. She then showed Harold what she needed for a cupboard, the number of baskets and some labels to mark them. Lily then had a maid collect a few more baskets and ribbon for Lily. Lily then made her labels for each basket and put the sample letters in each basket along with the letters that matched. She even made a basket for the "Discarded" letter basket and included the name Mr. Williams Sable in the discarded label. She then made the "Unknown Language" letter basket for letters she could not recognize.

She included this way so Harold would have easy access to the mail in her absence. Since she didn't have an office yet she used the library tables since it had a lot of space and few people used it. Then Lily made a list of addresses that matched the colored bookmarks to put in the matching baskets to make sorting easier. Then the last basket she made was for Harold since he was the one who handled the payments to the charities. She left those letters unsealed since he would need to review them last minute. Then Lily stood back as she checked her notes to make sure she didn't miss anything and realized that the letters that had a special seal needed to be added to the basket so she gently cut the seal out of the letters and stuck them to the labels for a reference. This way anyone could be easily trained to do this task with little training. Once she was content she began finishing up the letters she could get to and left the others for the next day. Once she was at a stopping point she looked out of the library and wondered what the good doctor was up to.

TBC