“On my “ return to Hartford?” Now are you the Seven Sleepers transmigrated & Metempsychosised into one. For I returned to Hartford weeks ago—the papers have been ringing with it. But I am going to return again, ten or twelve days hence—from the Chicago blow-out—doubtless that is the “return” you refer to. And I had an assignation with that torpedo, or 15-inch shell, or whatever it is you liken him to, to spend 5 or 10 days with him on or about the 3d day of December, & help eat the Holmes breakfast; & I was charming myself with the prospect of renewing the asperities of Paris with you; but alas I bet I’ve got to put that hegira (good word) off a full month or month & a half——& if I didn’t have a very good excuse,—yes, but I have, or may the old projectile blow me up for a false knave & no true Christian knight. I fully expect to have to stay at home & write the concluding chapters of that most lagging & hated book whilst Bliss tears out his few remaining hairs & rages for “copy.” But we shall see.

Meantime, don’t withdraw the invitation to Ponkapog, but spread it a little further over the almanac. For we are coming, father Abraham, & do not wish to be choused out of the chance.

I jumped into that Chicago business without sufficient reflection, & now that formidable winter-trip is before me & has to be taken; moreover, I have to start tomorrow, in order to avoid be ahead of the prodigious railway crowds. Charley Clark is just from there & says the hotels & boarding houses have already received 50,000 more applications than they can possibly accommodate. Yes, it’s a good deal of a journey, but I wouldⒶemendation rather make two like it than miss the excitement there’s going to be, there. We both send love to ye both.