ure. Again, choose, in your head, the best volume
of Labiche there is, and post it to Jules Simoneau, Monterey, Monterey
Co., California: do this at once, as he is my restaurant man, a most
pleasant old boy with whom I discuss the universe and play chess daily.
He has been out of France for thirty-five years, and never heard of
Labiche. I have eighty-three pages written of a story called _A Vendetta
in the West_, and about sixty pages of the first draft of the _Amateur
Emigrant_. They should each cover from 130 to 150 pages when done. That
is all my literary news. Do keep me posted, won't you? Your letter and
Bob's made the fifth and sixth I have had from Europe in three months.

At times I get terribly frightened about my work, which seems to advance
too slowly. I hope soon to have a greater burden to support, and must
make money a great deal quicker than I used. I may get nothing for the
_Vendetta_; I may only get some forty quid for the _Emigrant_; I cannot
hope to have them both done much before the end of November.

O, and look here, why did you not send me the Spectator which slanged
me? Rogues and rascals, is that all you are worth?

Yesterday I set fire to the forest, for which, had I been caught, I
should have been hung out of hand to the nearest tree, Judge Lynch being
an active person hereaway. You should have seen my retreat (which was
entirely for strategical purposes). I ran like hell. It was a fine
sight. At night I went out again to see it; it was a good fire, though I
say it that should not. I had a near escape for my life with a revolver:
I fired six charges, and the six bullets all remained in the barrel,
which was choked from end to end, from muzzle to breach, with solid
lead; it took a man three hours to drill them out. Another shot, and
I'd have gone to kingdom come.

This is a lovely place, which I am growing to love. The Pacific licks
all other oceans out of hand; there is no place but the Pacific Coast to
hear eternal roaring surf. When I get to the top of the woods behind
Monterey, I can hear the seas breaking all round over ten or twelve
miles of coast from near Carmel on my left, out to Point Pinas in front,
and away to the right along the sands of Monterey to Castroville and the
mouth of the Salinas. I was wishing yesterday that the world could
get--no, what I mean was that you should be kept in suspense like
Mahomet's coffin until the world had made half a revolution, then
dropped here a