February 3 Friday – In Florence Sam wrote a long letter to Frederick J. Hall touching on several subjects, all financial or literary. He asked Hall to carry his letter down to Frank Bowman of D. Slote & Co. and ask, probably about income from the scrapbooks. He announced he was “writing a companion to the Prince and Pauper which” was “half done and will make up 200,000 words,” (JA) and that if it was “gotten up in handsome style maybe the L.A.L canvassers would take it and run it with that book.” He didn’t want it going to a magazine.

Also, he was having several short pieces typewritten and would send them soon for magazines — he liked Century and Harper’s but didn’t object to Cosmopolitan “if they pay good rates.” Was it superstition to stick to one magazine? He sorted out the monthly $500 payments to him from Webster & Co., pointing out that December’s $1,000 was for making up a missing Nov. payment, not to be deducted from January’s. And for the big fish, he wrote:

Do your best with Carnegie, and don’t wait to consider any of my intermediate suggestions or talks about our raising half of the $200,000 ourselves. I mean, wait for nothing. To make my suggestion available I should have to go over and see Arnot, and I don’t want to until I know I can mention Carnegie’s name to him as going in with us.

Sam also announced that PW was typewritten and stood at 82,500 words, some 12,000 more than HF. He closed by telling Hall to “Get posted and keep posted about the machine” and suggesting that George Warner had friends in Chicago who might be able to furnish information on the Paige goings on — Warner was a “lovely man” whom Hall should know. Except, Sam didn’t want Warner to know he sought the information, though it might be difficult to keep it quiet [MTLTP 336-8]. Note: Livy did object to the “aggressively advertised” Cosmopolitan [MTHL 652n5].