Chapter M: N. to Mr. Dane

"I am going to finish up about _my_ business now, and then I shall not ever mention the subject again. But I did want to talk with somebody about it, having so little reliance on my own judgment. And your letter came just then, and so I wrote. I have never mentioned it to another soul. Confucius is a great deal better friend to me than you ever were or ever will be, but somehow I could not speak to him about it. I don't want to _speak_ to any one. Besides I was afraid he would take up against Mr. Hunt.

"I have looked into my papers, but I cannot make much out of them.... I never thought the first thing about it till I saw in the 'S.' what I told you before--and I hardly thought of it then; but several weeks after, when I wanted money, and my account for this year was less than I expected, I hunted up the old 'S.' to see if I had read it right, and then I wrote to Mr. Hunt without thought of there being anything wrong, but asking him how it was. I supposed there was some _modus operandi_, ... and wanted to know what. It was nearly three weeks before he wrote again, and then came a pleasant letter; but all he said about mine was--[then follows an account of the correspondence.]

"Now I must confess I feel next door to being insulted. I hate to use the word, but there it is. ---- is as innocent and as good as an angel, and does not in the least know what she is writing about. But all that Mr. Hunt ever said to me on the subject, or I to him, did not occupy five minutes, and he never spoke but once. That was years ago. It must have been before the second contract was made. He said that owing to the fluctuations of the market, the uncertainties arising from the war, or something of that sort, they were going to give their authors a fixed sum--fifteen cents per volume--instead of a percentage. It was at a time when prices (of books) were changing from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars, but I don't know exactly when. I assented of course; I neither knew nor cared anything about it. I had no interest in it. And that is all that has ever passed between us. Even now I have not the least fault to find if I am on the same footing as others. But why does he not say so? Do you think I am entirely unreasonable in being dissatisfied? I wish you would tell me if you think so, for it is like death almost to think it possible that Mr. Hunt should be in the wrong. I have had the most implicit confidence in him. I like him so much that I hate to hear a word said against the 'Adriatic,' or anything that he is concerned in. I would have been delighted to write for him for nothing if he had needed the money, and asked me.... Mr. Hunt's last letter to me by ---- was January 18. I did not reply to it, and so the matter stands. I shall never say or do anything more about it. You cannot conceive how distasteful it is to me. Nothing in all my life--literary--ever touched me so nearly. If I had lost every speck of money that I had--twice over--it would not have so disheartened me. Confidence must be entire, or it is nothing. Do not you ever speak to any one of this.... I shall never mention it. A dead friendship is as sacred as a dead friend.

[But if your dead friend will not rest quietly in his grave, but persists in stalking up and down the earth, scaring the timid, oppressing the weak, and boasting all the time his own beneficence, you may presently learn with Browning, that even

"Serene deadness
Tries a man's temper."]

"Now I hope I have not overwearied you with my tiresome letter. You need not be afraid of a repetition of it. In fact, there is nothing more to say,--which you will perhaps think the strongest security of all. I hope that you are good,--at least that you are content with nothing less than good,--which is the highest that any of us can go, I fancy. I think you had better burn this letter too. It will be safest."

MR. DANE TO M. N., FEBRUARY 4.

"Let us try your case by admitted principles. Inasmuch as you put yourself into Mr. Hunt's hands to do what was right, he was bound to pay you as much as others receive upon whose winnings the same profits are made. This is Law, Gospel, & Co. If he did more, it would be generosity; if less, meanness or worse.

"He agreed for ten per cent. on the 'City Lights,' and pays you fifteen cents per copy, which is exactly right if it retailed at one dollar fifty cents; and he pays you the same on the rest, I understand you.

"Whether he was reasonable in asking you to assent to the fifteen cents per copy depends on his sales. If they were very small, he would make less than if large. I suppose you own the copyright, but he owns the stereotype plates, which cost the same whether many or few copies are printed. If when paper, and so forth, increased in value, he increased the price _pro rata_, and the sales continued the same, he made a larger profit, and should pay you more; that is, your percentage should continue as large. Now, if he sends you any proper accounts of sales, they will tell the story as to the number of copies sold, but not whether they cost fifty or a hundred per cent. more than formerly. Jackson or any book-publisher would know as to that.

"It would seem that you have received the minimum price, according to Jackson and the Segregationalissuemost, and my own notions. Your books are well printed on tinted paper, and your _notions_ may have abridged the profits. I mean you may have required expensive editions, more so than was profitable; but I think not. Will you just show me your contracts and accounts of sales.... I am bound professionally to secresy, and my habits are fixed, so that I tell nobody other people's affairs.

"It is due to Mr. Hunt that you investigate the matter to some conclusion.... Mr. Hunt mistook your position. Your ready assent to his proposition and your confidence in him, which rendered any sharp bargaining unnecessary on your part, was interpreted as inability to comprehend matters of business; and so they said you understood it once, and will again when you are where you can be talked to. You gave no heed to what was said, and it is a waste of ink to write it all out!

"But you and I know better. Your mind is logical, and your simplicity as to business a sham."