Dear Mr. Smith,

        I am writing to you concerning your order, No. CU 1154/d which you
placed four weeks ago. At that time we had expected to be able to complete the
order well within the delivery date we gave you which was 18 June, but since
then we have heard that our main supplier of chrome has gone bankrupt.
        This means that we have to find another supplier who could fulfil all
the outstanding contracts we have to complete. As you will appreciate this will
take some time, but we are confident that we should be able to arrange to get
our materials and deliver consignments to our customers by the middle of next
month.
        The units themselves have been assembled and now simply need
completing.
        We regret this unfortunate situation over which we had no control and
apologize for the inconvenience. If you wish to cancel the order it would be
quite understandable, but we stress that we will be able to complete delivery
by next month and would appreciate it if you could bear with us till then.
        Please let us know your decision as soon as possible. Thank you for
your consideration.

                                Yours sincerely,

                                 Larry Smith

