7 December 1952

Dear Daddy and Mamma,

Here are some problems. If they are too late, I am sorry.

Thank you very much for the gift. Perhaps I shall buy a tuxedo. I must go to dinner with Bragg Tuesday and must rent a dinner jacket. You have ruined all my not very well planned plans to extort great quantities of money. I cannot very well now. As you know, Mamma sent me $100 to buy a coat and some woolies.

I went skating yesterday and today. It is great fun, but hard. We skate on the frozen sewage farm. This has been the coldest November on record.

I expect I shall go into the Myoglobin program. Things are breaking out all over. We have 6 or 8 new crystal types, a couple of which are very good. Perhaps I shall try to determine molecular shape by the salt water method of Perutz.

Don't let Bob Corey get unhappy with JHS and a rotating anode tube. It would be a minimum of six months to have it made here, and it has been three years since Broad started to make it. I think you will get a better tube by letting Holmes do his damndest.

Having allowed myself to be wooed by an insane plan of a mad Rhodes scholar, I am leaving Wednesday for the Continent. We are supposedly starting for Vienna, but I am not sure we shall make it. Anyway, I expect an adventure of some sort. We shall probably do some skiing. Perhaps see Wasers. I shall advise an address if I know where we shall be.

Mamma, you are a darling girl. I have made inquiries for a coat, and should have one soon. I shall buy one in a couple of days. It will be very nice. I am going to get some long underwear tomorrow.

I had Thanksgiving dinner with some Americans named Campbell here. It was grand. Turkey, homemade bread, homemade cranberry sauce. I was very homesick. You were in the mountains at the same time.

I have bought a couple of minor gifts, but have not sent them. So I expect they will be late. I am sorry. Papa's gift has not arrived, it is on order. So it ought to be in time for birthday. I'll see what I can do.

Much love,

XXXXXX Peter

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