Hartford Jan 10.
My Dear Sister:
The books which Sam sent to us supplied an eminent deficiency & were very welcome.
Ma forces me to reveal what I have concealed for a couple of months—to-wit. In October I discovered that my publisher cheated me out of a great sum of money 8 years ago; & that the same swindle would have been played upon me on my last book if it had not been for some figures & estimates which Orion made for me 87 years ago. If I had believed in those estimates at the time, I would be better off now, than I am, by a hundred thousand dollars. Well, I proved the correctness of his estimates, since, & based the contract for my last book upon them—whereby I saved twenty thousand dollars. So I wrote Orion that he should have the advantage of that saving—that is to say, he should have the income from that $20,000 after subtracting taxes. This gives him $75 a month as long as he lives & I prosper; & it is not my money he is receiving, but his own—& fairly & honestly earned. He needn’t blush to reeceive it. If I had listened to him long ago, I could have been giving him the income from $50,000, without missing it, all this time. However, I have swept away his past indebtedness. He owes no man a [cent.—]at least he owes me nothing.
Sam.
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroML, reel 4.
Provenance:
See Moffett Collection in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
cent.— • [deletion implied]
