Why do I offer him the play at all?  For these reasons:  he plays that character well; there are not thirty actors in the country who can do it better; and, too, he has a sort of sentimental right to be offered the piece, though no moral, or legal, or other kind of right.

    Therefore we do offer it to him; but only once, not twice.  Let us
    have no hemming and hawing; make short, sharp work of the business. 
    I decline to have any correspondence with R. myself in any way.

This was at the end of November, 1883, while the play was still being revised.  Negotiations with Raymond had already begun, though he does not appear to have actually seen the play during that theatrical season, and many and various were the attempts made to place it elsewhere; always with one result—­that each actor or manager, in the end, declared it to be strictly a Raymond play.  The thing was hanging fire for nearly a year, altogether, while they were waiting on Raymond, who had a profitable play, and was in no hurry for the recrudescence of Sellers.  Howells tells how he eventually took the manuscript to Raymond, whom he found “in a mood of sweet reasonableness” at one of Osgood’s luncheons.  Raymond said he could not do the play then, but was sure he would like it for the coming season, and in any case would be glad to read it.

In due time Raymond reported favorably on the play, at least so far as the first act was concerned, but he objected to the materialization feature and to Sellers as claimant for the English earldom.  He asked that these features be eliminated, or at least much ameliorated; but as these constituted the backbone and purpose of the whole play, Clemens and Howells decided that what was left would be hardly worth while.  Raymond finally agreed to try the play as it was in one of the larger towns —­Howells thinks in Buffalo.  A week later the manuscript came back to Webster, who had general charge of the business negotiations, as indeed he had of all Mark Twain’s affairs at this time, and with it a brief line: 

    Dear sir,—­I have just finished rereading the play, and am convinced
    that in its present form it would not prove successful.  I return
    the manuscript by express to your address.

    Thanking you for your courtesy, I am,

    Yours truly, John T. Raymond.

    P.S.—­If the play is altered and made longer I will be pleased to
    read it again.

In his former letter Raymond had declared that “Sellers, while a very sanguine man, was not a lunatic, and no one but a lunatic could for a moment imagine that he had done such a work” (meaning the materialization).  Clearly Raymond wanted a more serious presentation, something akin to his earlier success, and on the whole we can hardly blame him.  But the authors had faith in their performance as it stood, and agreed they would make no change.