I go to Boston to-morrow (address care Osgood, 211 Tremont st.) I go to Montreal Saturday.)Ⓐemendation Address, Windsor Hotel, Montreal.

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Nobody who knows you, would ever think of charging you with either slowness or absence of energy. But don’t you understand that it is not sufficient for a doctor to be wearing himself out & doing his level best over one’s sick child in a distant city: no, just as essential a thing is, that he shall tell the anxious parent, every single day, what he is doing, & what the effect is, upon the patient,. Now what I have felt the want of, in you, the doctor, is, reports, reports, man! I haven’t doubted your diligence or your capacity.

You were going to ask Dean Sage about Denver & Rio Grande. He doubtless told you that the combination exploded when the stock reached 86, & that a heavy fall was bound to follow. But you forgot to tell me, don’t you see? Consequently I only learned it this morning, when the stock is down to 78——which means a loss of $1600, if I were forced to sell now—which I ain’t.

I was very anxious to know the daily prospects for brass, because if brass succeeded I wanted to keep up the English patent; otherwise I should lack confidence & be half inclined to let that patent go. But the time kept wasting away, until at last we couldn’t wait any longer; we had to pony up the £55 on an uncertainty. You say, “We have demonstrated, I think, that the steel plates will stand the heat, also that the clay will stand the heat.” That is plenty to risk £55 on. A telegram to that effect would have made my course plain & easy.

I don’t want to require long reports—a remark like the one just quoted is plenty for a day: it keeps the parent posted as to the condition of the sick child.

Don’t you see, it would have been a shame in me to betray impatience, if I had known you were pegging away there more than half of every night? Of course it would; & I should have said “Modify those hours—health is more than brass.” And I say that now—& repeat it.

You have wrought admirably, from the beginning, in everything you have undertaken—nobody realizes that so well as I do, for nobody has had my chance to realize it, since nobody has had so much to do with Slote as I have had. And although I do lose my temper 30 times a day, on an average, you will observe that it is not my habit to let it out on you.

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Now do as I wanted you to do the other day: throw brass aside for a while, & try copper. Let me call your close attention to one fact, viz., that the reason why electrotypes are not used for book stamps is merely because the spelter under them is too soft. The copper face is hard enough. A copper stamp is just about as good as a brass stamp; it will stand all the wear & pressure that is ordinarily going to be required of it. After you have tried copper, then we will try brass again.

But make me a copper stamp, now.

If we succeed with copper, brass stamps will never be used any more in the Christian world.

Copper costs less than brass, I think, & is just as good.

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I have a project. (This is private.) It is for you & me to go to England & put Kaolatype (after buying controlling interest,) into good hands there,—with copper or brass attachment; & also sell a hundred or so of those type-settersⒶemendation, if we can get a fair enough commission for it.

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Make me a copper stamp, Charley.