Thanks for the letter. Observing the date, it occurred to me that it is a rather swell experience in an ordinary mortal’s life to receive a Valentine from an acting-Emperor. It’s a mighty nice one, too.

Come up here, when you get a chance, & let me show you that thing which the soundest & level-headedest prophets in the world have usually said not could never be invented—a perfectly satisfactory type-setting & distributing machine. They have been building & w it & improving it & tinkering at it for several years at Colt’s factory, & have finally got it right. I never saw such an inspired bugger of a machine. Anybody can set type with it; nobody can get it out of order; & as for the distributing, it attends to that itself, automatically, & without waiting to be notified. A man who owns a newspaper can’t look at this creature unmoved.