It took my breath away, & I haven’t recovered it yet, entirely—I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck Finn. Now if you mean it, old man—if you are in earnest—proceed, in God’s name, & be by me forever blest. I cannot conceive of a rational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job on to upon himself; but if there is such a man, & you be that man, whey then pile it on. It will cost me a pang every time I think of it, but this anguish will be eingebüsst to me in the joy & comfort I shall get out of the not having to read the verfluchten proofs myself. But if your have repented of your augenblichlicher Tobsucht & got back to calm cold reason again, I won’t hold you to it unless I find I have got you down in writing somewhere. Herr, I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-readingⒶemendation on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.

Charley Webster is going to see Raymond to-morrow or next day (R is in New York), & make another attempt upon him.

Charley has also been over to Newark & badgered out of those people an agreement about the grape-scissors which has to me a thoroughly bully & satisfactory look. Mainly because those people are to put up all the money themselves, & run all the risks. They have very great facilities for getting the scissors on the market; they propose to sell them at the lowest possible figure (say 50 cents to the jobber, who will sell them to the consumer at 75) & pay you p 5 cents out of the said 50 cents. They propose to advertise widely, issue colored lithographs of gaudy young ladies scissoring grapes with one hand & roses with the other—& all that sort of thing. I think it’s a noble contract, & couldn’t ever be bettered. They will keep a separ[a]te set of books for the scissor-business, which will show all their sales & be open to your inspection.

I’ve had the dam gout, & been felt too much insulted by it & annoyed over it to write you, or take any Ⓐemendation interest in anything but cursing; but I reckon I’m mainly all right now, again.

And I’m loafing—loafing all the time—& enjoying it.

Mit meinem (is it m?) Grüsse an Frau Howells und die Uebrigen der Familie, bleibe ich