Never mind. Crane says the coal-firm’s young phonographer will suit me, & the firm would like him to have the trip & the holiday as a testimony of their satisfaction with him. He will not be expensive.

I have instructed

Better send the India-paper books here, I guess—I don’t see no propspect of getting to Boston pretty soon.

Are you paying general agents 60 per cent? Years ago I remember hearing Bliss say that if he should allow a general agent more than 50 when a book was new, the b scoundrel would rush them immediately into the bookstores. Still, I also remember that the books were rushed into the bookstores when new, whatever the percentage was.

Have you evidence of the American Pub Co working against us upon which I could found a suit? Am going for them anyway, & might as well have 2 suits as one.

Think of those thieves declaring another dividend! This is the second one since the end of last June, when they hadn’t ten cents in their treasury. Webster stepped in there yesterday, & found them, as usual, with no work of a fatiguing nature going on. Bliss said I had probably found out by this time the mistake I na made in leaving an experienced subscription man to go to a green one. He said Osgood had minutely studied & copied all the methods invented by them, & was using the machinery (agencies) created by them. Webster hinted that should have remarked that Osgood was not employing all of it, but only the inferior & subordinate lib limbs—but he didn’t think of it, I reckon.

My New York lawyer will begin to move in my American Pub. Co. suit early, now. I shall want to show that the Co paid more for paper & binding than they needed to pay; & I shall want you to help me do this, through figures obstained from Fairchild & bookbinders. I judge I can scare get my copyrights out of those fellows; & then they may just as well shut up shop.