Nevertheless I am right. The big sale is always before issue—afterⒶemendation issue, the agents immediately load up the bookstores & canvassing ceases.

March—21,585. That’s all right; but the 17,635 under “Apl & May” ought to have been bound & dielivered not only to the Am Pub Co along with the 21,585 in March—no, before March. All those 39,000 books were ordered before March 1—& mighty few were subscribed for after Mch 1. You say “if they had 40,000 orders on day of publication & didn’t fill them for 3 months it was bad management.” It ain’t an if—it is what happened.

The orders that come in after the ISSUE of a subscription book don’t amount to a damn—just write that up amongst your moral maxims; for it is truer than t nearly anyⒶemendationthing in the Bible.

As to the White Elephant, do as you & Charley prefer.

If I should go to New York, we’ll take the same train & try the Shelburn. But the thing is uncertain & unguessable now, for if Mrs. Clemens continues to galin at this rate & no faster she will not be able to spare me from the sick room before Xmas.