Then follows a “sketch of agreement” to be made with managers; for in all business-matters he was extremely particular, and sometimes needlessly anxious about trifles.

In the same letter he went on to remark, “I say ten dollars as being enough and not a halfpenny too much.  It is all I ask.  If you can get fifteen dollars on these terms, pocket the balance.  But never sell the provincial right to a New York manager.  It is worth a great deal more than the New York right, properly worked.  It is no use showing it to Laura Keene.  I spoke to her in England about it.

“With many thanks for your zeal and intelligence, and hoping that we may contrive, somehow or other, one day or other to make a hit together, I am yours, etc.”

On November 19, 1861, he wrote, “Now for your book.  Truebner is fair-dealing, but powerless as a publisher.  All the pushing is done by me.  I have had a long and hard fight to get the public here to buy a novel published by him, and could hardly recommend another to go through it.  If done on commission and by Truebner, I could take it under my wing in the advertisements.

“Next week I expect to plead the great case of Reade v. Conquest” (manager of the Grecian Theatre, London) “in the Court of Common Pleas.  If I win, I shall bring out my drama ‘Never Too Late to Mend’ and send it out to you to deal with.  Please collect Yankee critiques (on ’The Cloister and the Hearth’) for me; the more the better.”

On November 1, 1861, he wrote, “I send you ‘Saunders & Otley’s Monthly,’ containing an elaborate review of ‘The Cloister,’ etc.  I don’t know the writer, but he seems to be no fool.  I do hope, my dear fellow, you will watch the printers closely, and so get me some money, for I am weighed down by law-expenses,—­Reade v. Bentley, Reade v. Lacy, Reade v. Conquest,—­all in defence of my own.  And don’t trust the play above twenty-four hours out of your own hand.  Theatricals are awful liars and thieves.  I co-operate by writing to Ticknors and H——­ not to pirate you if they wish to remain on business terms with me.  Second edition all but gone; third goes to press Monday.  Everybody says it is my best book.”

On the next day he wrote, “I am a careful man, and counted every page I sent you, and sealed and posted them with my own hand.  I am quite satisfied with the agreement with Rudd & Carleton, if there is to be no false printer’s return.  The only thing that makes me a little uneasy is your apparent confidence that they could not cheat us out of twenty thousand dollars by this means if extraordinary vigilance were not used.  They can, and will, with as little remorse as a Newgate thief would, unless singular precautions are used.  If I was there I would have a secret agent in the printing-house to note each order, its date and amount, in writing.  The plates being yours, you have, in fact, a legal right to inspect the printer’s books.  But this is valueless.  The printer would cook his books to please the publisher.  You can have no conception of the villany done under all these sharing agreements.  But forewarned forearmed.  Think of some way of baffling this invariable fraud.  Ask a knowing printer some way.  Do anything but underrate the danger.