signers and pays them from 800 to 3,000 odd florins a year--(a florin
is 2 francs). Let us call the average wage 1500 florins ($600).

"Let us apply these figures (the low wages too) to the 2,000 American
factories--with this difference, to guard against over-guessing; that
instead of allowing for 20 to 30 designers to a middle-sized factory, we
allow only an average of 10 to each of the 2,000 factories--a total of
20,000 designers. Wages at $600, a total of $12,000,000. Let us consider
that No. 2 will reduce this expense to $2,000,000 a year. The saving
is $5,000,000 per each of the $200,000,000 of capital employed in the
jacquard business over there.

"Let us consider that in the countries covered by this patent, an
aggregate of $1,500,000,000 of capital is employed in factories
requiring No. 2.

"The saving (as above) is $75,000,000 a year. The Company holding in its
grip all these patents would collar $50,000,000 of that, as its share.
Possibly more.

"Competition would be at an end in the Jacquard business, on this
planet. Price-cutting would end. Fluctuations in values would cease. The
business would be the safest and surest in the world; commercial
panics could not seriously affect it; its stock would be as choice an
investment as Government bonds. When the patents died the Company would
be so powerful that it could still keep the whole business in its hands.
Would you like to grant me the privilege of placing the whole jacquard
business of the world in the grip of a single Company? And don't you
think that the business would grow-grow like a weed?"

"Ach, America--it is the country of the big! Let me get my breath--then
we will talk."

So then we talked--talked till pretty late. Would Germany and England
join the combination? I said the Company would know how to persuade
them.

Then I asked for a Supplementary Option, to cover the world, and we
parted.

I am taking all precautions to keep my name out of print in connection
with this matter. And we will now keep the invention itself out of print
as well as we can. Descriptions of it have been granted to the "Dry
Goods Economist" (New York) and to a syndicate of American papers. I
have asked Mr. Kleinberg to suppress these, and he feels pretty sure he
can do it.

With love,
S. L. C.

If this splendid enthusiasm had not cooled by the time a reply came
from Mr. Rogers, it must have received a sud