In 3 more weeks this platform-campaign will be over, & then I shall hope to get in a good humor & stay so.

It would be a grand thing if we could get the General’s book on those terms. I shouldn’t want any surer thing, seems to me. You know I read in Brooklyn Feb. 21—I shall want to see you at the Everett that day—maybe you will know by that time.

Remind

You can bring a Huck Finn in a nice binding, & I will write in it & we will send it to F Col. Fred Grant’s eldest little girl.

And we must talk over the propriety of sending out 300 press copies early —say Feb. 23d—without waiting for the magazines—Heavens & earth! the book ought to have been reviewed in the March Century & Atlantic!—how have we been dull enough to go & overlook that? It is an irreparable blunder. It should have been attended to, weeks ago, when we named the day of publication. If we had but done that, we could flood the country with press copies the 25th of Feb., for then the Magazines would already have taught the given the key-note to the reviews.

---

D. Appleton & Co played off their “Artistic Homes” ($300) on me—a humiliating swindle. Now what I propose to do, is to order several hundred dollars’ worth of books of them (American Cycolopedias, &c.,) & tell them to send me the bill; then, after I get the books, tell them to come & cart away the Artistic Homes & pay back my $300 & they can have the other books; or, if they prefer, I will come to New York & be sued for the other books & state my case to the interviewers. Is this a good idea? Tell me. In addition, I have an idea of writing a neat & readable account of how the “A. H.” swindle was played upon me, & offering them the first chance to buy the MS for $300. Write me about these things.