O, here’s trouble! About three or four weeks ago Bliss called & said he had just c shipped the closing chapter to Chatto & would soon be ready to issue. I said, “Then cable Chatto your date of issue so he can issue at the same time.”

Three or four days ago, got a letter from Chatto saying final batch not yet received, & no casts of engravings. Dropped Bliss a line at once, & he came up last night & said no casts had been ordered. Bliss says I told him, as soon as I got home from England, that Chatto and Conway would would probably want casts—& that wherefore he expected an inquiry from Chatto as to price to be paid, but none came. Says it he is only a salaried servant of his company & would not have been justified in shipping the 300 or 400 casts with no stipulation & no order to back him. I myself would not have been afraid to give the order, without other backing than Chatto’s spoken word—therefore I suppose I hadn’t his spoken word. The whole thing is dim in my memory. I remember showing Chatto a lot of Fr. Browne’s pen-&-ink illustrations, & I think I asked him to write Bliss & get an estimate, in case he wanted to illustrate, but Lord only knows what I did do or say. It is the rule of my life to trans refer people to other people in all matters of business, not take a hand in it myself; so it was natural for me to refer Chatto to Bliss. Damn Browne, I never should have thought of the pictures if he hadn’t been in such a sweat to see some of them in the London edition.

Tauchnitz spoke to me about pictures, in Paris. I referred him to Bliss. A few weeks ago, he wrote me again: I referred him to Bliss and Chatto. I didn’t know Chatto was taking engravings, but I have had the impression that he was.

Bliss says he sent Chatto his prospectus-book four or five months ago, (containing a considerable number of the pictures,) by way of hint, but Chatto didn’t order any. He says Chatto and Tauchnitz have been receiving the illustrated advance-sheets all along, but Chatto not having ordered or inquired about pictures, he concluded he was going to issue a cheap edition first, to see how it was received, before bothering with a bigger & costlier form.

Chatto had received 560 pages when he wrote me about pictures 2 or 3 days ago. The letter was a long time on the way. I wish he had cabled instead. Then we could have held on & sent the casts, perhaps, though our agents all over the country have been growling a good while about our delay. Chatto cabled me to-day to hold on, & send pictures, but it was too late—we had already issued. It is a great pity, but I don’t think I have been in fault, & Bliss says he hasn’t.

Howells, in a private letter to me, is very enthusiastic about the book. We have sent no copies to the press, as yet. We have sold 30,000 copies, & Bliss thinks we shall cut closer upon 50,000 copies for the first 3-months sale than any previous book of mine has reached. In which case it will have to go above 43,000, for two of my books went to that on a first-quarter sale.

When you see Chatto will you show him this or talk with him about the unfortunate misunderstanding?