I received your letters yesterday postmarked 12thⒶemendation, & Pamela’s to-day postmarked 16thⒶemendation— Your arguments are strong—too strong to be refuted—& now I have no idea of going away without visiting St Louis first.

But I cannot now form an idea of when that will be. Sometime hence, I guess. If I could go by sea, it would be pleasant, but I dread the land passage in winter, notwithstanding the trip is short. Still, I would go anyhow, at once, if I had Orion’s affair settled. I was getting along well with it until last night. I am so situated that I can find out what the President is going to do a week before the other newspaper men—& last night I learned that he had concluded yesterday not to appoint Mr. Ely to the CommissionerⒶemendation of Patents, notwithstandingⒶemendation newspaper rumors to the contrary, but will appoint a Mr. Burroughs (this is private, of course.) So I shall have to start after Mr. Burroughs, now, whoever he may be, & run him to cover.

I know very well how to proceed, though. Success is the only question—not the only one, either—for the Senate generally makes it a point to refuse to confirm the President’s appointees.

I have a letter from Routledge the London publisher, asking me to write for his magazine—articles from 6 or 8 to 10 or 12 pages long, at $5 a page, gold—but I cannot write magazine articles worth a cent—if I could I would write for our own magazines—they pay a little more, or at least as much.

Routledge says he is delighted with the Jumping Frog book, & that it has a great sale in England. It has had a better sale in America than it deserved. It takes an awful edition to pay first cost, but it has done that— not many books do. I naturally suppose that now it will quit selling.

I called at Gen. Grant’s house last night. He was out at a dinner party, but Mrs. Grant said she would keep him at home on Sunday evening. I must see him, because he is good for one letter for the Alta, & part of a lecture for San F. Grant’s father was there. Swinton & I are going to get the old man into a private room at Willard’s & start his tongue with a whisky punch. He will tell everythingⒶemendation he knows & twice as much that he sup­poses—will be glad to do it—& then we can use it as “coming from high authority” without betraying the old gentleman. But seriously we shall not print anything but just such matters as would tickle his vanity rather than give him pain.

Dan Slote will be disappointed to-night in New York when he comes after me.