covers the details of this undertaking.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Oct. 18, 1885.

Private.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I reckon it would ruin the book that is, make it
necessary to pigeon-hole it and leave it unpublished. I couldn't publish
it without a very responsible name to support my own on the title page,
because it has so much of my own matter in it. I bought Osgood's rights
for $3,000 cash, I have paid Clark $800 and owe him $700 more, which
must of course be paid whether I publish or not. Yet I fully
recognize that I have no sort of moral right to let that ancient and
procrastinated contract hamper you in any way, and I most certainly
won't. So, it is my decision,--after thinking over and rejecting the
idea of trying to buy permission of the Harpers for $2,500 to use your
name, (a proposition which they would hate to refuse to a man in a
perplexed position, and yet would naturally have to refuse it,) to
pigeon-hole the "Library": not destroy it, but merely pigeon-hole it and
wait a few years and see what new notion Providence will take concerning
it. He will not desert us now, after putting in four licks to our one on
this book all this time. It really seems in a sense discourteous not to
call it "Providence's Library of Humor."

Now that deal is all settled, the next question is, do you need and must
you require that $2,000 now? Since last March, you know, I am carrying a
mighty load, solitary and alone--General Grant's book--and must carry it
till the first volume is 30 days old (Jan. 1st) before the relief money
will begin to flow in. From now till the first of January every dollar
is as valuable to me as it could be to a famishing tramp. If you can
wait till then--I mean without discomfort, without inconvenience--it
will be a large accommodation to me; but I will not allow you to do this
favor if it will discommode you. So, speak right out, frankly, and
if you need the money I will go out on the highway and get it, using
violence, if necessary.

Mind, I am not in financial difficulties, and am not going to be. I am
merely a starving beggar standing outside the door of plenty--obstructed
by a Yale time-lock which is set for Jan. 1st. I can stand it, and
stand it perfectly well; but the days do seem to fool along considerable
slower than they used to.

I am mighty glad you are with the Harpers. I have noticed that good men
in their employ go