My publisher contends that such as wanted the story would go to St. Nicholas for it; & that this would cut our sales down by 40 or 50,000 30 or 40,000 copies when we came to issue the thing in book form. I am afraid he is right. One formidable argument or another has always intruded itself to bar me from the pleasure of publishing serially, & now it has happened again; & this time it hurts—for Mrs. Clemens & Mrs. Warner have decided that this particular Tale comes under the head of that sort which St. Nicholas “must have”.—a verdict which makes up for all the dispraise which they have lavished upon some other of my “works.”