I wish the French gentleman was in Jericho; but as he isn’t, I suppose I’ve got to bother with him.

Make any contract you please with him, for I look the tighter the better, I suppose. But it won’t be worth while to try to get out of him “a certain sum per annum in any event”—I feel sure of that—entirely sure. The best you can do will be to limit his ownership of the

remainder of letter missing