Paris, May 15/79 
Care
Munroe & Co, Bankers.
Dear Mother Fairbanks:
O dear me, what a world it is! We all catch it, sinners & saints alike—but still I thought you deserved to escape, and I am sure there must be some mistake in your case. But I must not stop to moralize, for my day’s work is before me, & time rushes. (I work six solid days every week—nothing short of it will ever finish this book.)
We are in Europe mainly to cut down our intolerable expenses our expenses, & we are doing it the best we can—so I am going to send you the minor figure which you propose,—viz, $1000. I am afraid you ain’t any better financier than I am—for when you ask me to lend you $1000 or $2000 on property worth more than $15,000 you are taking heaps of unnecessary trouble. You can borrow three times that amount on that property right in Cleveland. However, it ain’t for a son to teach his mother [finance. Possibly] you do not want the thing public? I had not thought of that. But you can trust Charley Langdon, & there is small doubt that he would furnish you the other $1000 which you want. What you say about Mr. Gaylord astounds me; for I did not know he was a rascal, I thought he was only a fool. (There now, I have let my opinion slip, & if your relations should presently resume their former state, you’ll hold a grudge against me.)
Now don’t think hard of me for writing in this light vein when you are in trouble—I don’t mean any harm—& I mustn’t get into a mournful mood, it isn’t suited to the chapter I have mapped out for today’s work—but exactly the reverse. I can’t burlesque the Mr. Whymper & the other fantastic Alp-climbers with a solemn underpinning to my thought—It it would be a failure.
By George, now I know what stirred up that hornest’s nest in Hartford! It was Charley’s [pictures. Privately] (it must not be mentioned—to anybody—not even to Charl[e]y or his father) I’m in the midst of a quarrel with the American pPublishing Company, & Charley’s sending those pictures there was an awful mistake. It never occurred to me to remark that they should be sent here—to [me.] ‸drawn on paper, not on the wood.‸ That was an important omission on my part. Consound it, I do get into more trouble than any ass that ever lived. I sometimes wish to gracious I never had been born an ass.
Well, this vein won’t answer for that chapter, if I proceed with it——so I will send you & my dear Mollie & all whom you love the love of this family in unstinted measure—& drop business letter-writing & go to work.
Your eldest son
Samℓ.
Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks | Fair Banks | Near Cleveland | Ohio | U. S. of A. [in upper left corner:] America | [rule] [postmarked:] pl. du theatre-français paris 7e 18 mai 79 [and] new york may 28 paid all g
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