MⒶemendation Draw up my contract with Pond (Everett House.) I mean, you & he draw it up together;—to-wit:

1. I am to read during November (after the 4th which is election day)[,] December (to about 18th 21st Ⓐemendation,) (to about 21st) , January (after about ◊◊ a holiday of nearly or about 2  2 weeks ten days) & February. The readings to be within those 4 months.

2. Pond to furnish Cable to me, & ◊◊ pay C him $450 per & expenses per week. Cable’s pay to begin the day we begin to read, & so continue, by the week. If our holiday begin[s] when a week is unfinished, that week to be finished after said holiday. The last week of the reading, if it be an unfinished week, to be paid for at the rate of $450 per week & expenses.

During the siege, Cable is to be paid whether our time is filled or not; but he is not to be paid in cases where he is absent from his post on account of sickness or other cause.

3. Pond is to go with us all the time; & when he cannot be with us he must send his brother. inserted by Webster, in a box: O W Pond

4. Pond must furnish us a treasurer, or some such official, & name his price.

5. Pond must attend to everything which comes under the head of business—halls, route, printing, prices, &c, deciding all business questions himself, & asking no advice of me—though he may bother you with such things as much as he wants to.

It is Pond’s menagerie, not mine; & he must put himself to the front, all the time, as boss & head-ringmaster.

6. Preliminarily, this show must be exhibited from 6 to 10 times before it appears in any metropolis, so that Cable & I can weed our program & get our hands in. This is imperative.

7. Pond must make the journeys as short & easy as circumstances will allow; for I am old & shaky, & a breakdown would be expensive.

9. Pond is to have 10 per cent of the profits of the raid for his services.

10. Pond to send you a detailed daily or weekly (as you shall agree between you) account of the receipts & disbursements; & pay over to me, daily, what is coming to me.

11. If by chance we should ever give more than 2 matineés in one week, Cable to be paid $60 extra for each matineé after the second.

(10 or 11 days’ holiday—from Dec. 29 20 (Saturday night after performance) to & including New Years’Ⓐemendation Day—ought to be enough.

---

The route should be so arranged as to place me in Canada Dec. 18, 19, & 20, so that if you are then ready to issue the book I can copyright it & issue it there at the same time.

I think it could be done

If it ItⒶemendation should might turn out that you hadn’t your 40,000 orders by that time; in that case, so, the route had better be so arranged as to throw me into the Canada border 3 days again, 4 or 5 weeks later, if this can conveniently be done.