October 6 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, who evidently was going to Chicago on the Ogilvie matter for Sam.

      Find out, in Chicago, how my old books are now sold—by canvassers? or are they ordered by individuals, or by publishers? What is to account for their continuous & regular sale? It is a sale which keeps right along; this last quarter equals what they used to be, in old Bliss’s time. How are these sales accomplished? Find out the method while in Chicago.

      I’ve got an idea. The Am. Pub. Co. might be crowded, by this suit, into this compromise—I to withdraw the suit, & they to turn over my copyrights to me one or two years from now.

      Book contracts seem to be unusually limited to 3 years or 5, but as I had the monumental fool of the 19th century for a lawyer, these endure forever [MTBus 203-4]. Note: This may suggest Sam’s reason for firing Charles E. Perkins as his attorney; he felt Perkins had allowed him to sign poor contracts.

Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy: “We shall be out of money again the 1st of Nov., as per account enclosed” [MTP].