, if they can help it. Keep it ten years, if
necessary, till some theatre will play it. You will find that all those
reasons they have given you will disappear the moment it is played in
England, and then the game will be to steal it. Copyright it in your
name and mine, if a manuscript can be so protected, and I will enter it
here in my name and yours.

"Considering the terrible financial crisis impending over the United
States, I feel sad misgivings as to my poor 'Cloister.' It would indeed
be a relief if the next mail would bring me a remittance,--not out of
your pocket, but by way of discount from the publishers. I am much
burdened with lawsuits and the outlay, without immediate return, of
publishing four editions" (of "The Cloister and the Hearth"). "Will you
think of this, and try them, if not done already? Many thanks for the
scrap-book and for making one. Mind and classify yours. You will never
regret it. Dickens and Thackeray both offer liberally to me for a serial
story." (Dickens then edited "All the Year Bound," and Thackeray "The
Cornhill Magazine.")

On January 27, 1862, he wrote, "The theatrical managers are all liars
and thieves. The reason they decline my play is, they hope to get it by
stealing it. They will play it fast enough the moment it has been
brought out here and they can get it without paying a shilling for it.
Your only plan is to let them know it shall never come into their hands
gratis."

In a letter undated, but written in the same month, he wrote, "My next
story" ("Very Hard Cash"). "This is a matter of considerable importance.
It is to come out first in 'All the Year Round,' and, foreseeing a
difficulty in America, I have protected myself in that country by a
stringent clause. The English publishers bind themselves to furnish me
very early sheets and not to furnish them to any other person but my
agent. This and another clause enable me to offer the consecutive early
sheets to a paper or periodical, and the complete work in advance on
that to a book-publisher. I am quite content with three hundred pounds
for the periodical, but ask five per cent. on the book. It will be a
three-volume novel,--a story of the day, with love, money, fighting,
manoeuvring, medicine, religion, adventures by sea and land, and some
extraordinary revelations of fact clothed in the garb of fiction. In
short, unless I deceive myself, it will make a stir. Please to settle
this one way or other, and let me know. I