say to your readers now and unqualifiedly,
that you have a real remedy for the present financial evils,
and that it will show when it is given that it is anything
more than some new scheme by which you personally are to get
the people's money?

16. Do you dare to say now to your readers unqualifiedly
that this remedy will show conclusively that it has not been
invented since you began your story of "Frenzied Finance"?

17. Do you dare tell your readers now and unqualifiedly that
you personally did not make money out of what you call the
"Amalgamated swindle"?

18. Do you dare tell your readers now and unqualifiedly that
you have not made money, and an enormous amount of it--very
much more than all you have spent in connection with your
work of "Frenzied Finance"--out of the people since your
story began?

I will state in fairness to you before you make answer to
the above questions that it is now my intention to take
your answers into court in a suit which will be brought, and
that if you have made answers different from those you make
under oath you will be held up to the scorn of the whole
American people.

I replied:

I admire your smartness. Of the thousands of letters I have recently
received yours is the cunningest. If I do not answer your shrewd and
adroitly put questions in the brief space at my disposal, you will
discredit my work. If I take offence at your way of putting your
questions, you will have the pretext you are evidently looking for.
Then, your closing warning is so manly and generous! I must not lie,
because, if I do, you will expose me in court! You thought that would
make good reading after I had refused to make reply in this issue, and
you had advertised your letter. Again, you probably figured that as my
June chapter was all taken up with my story and there was no room for
the insurance article I had promised, I should need all my "Critics"
space this month for it; so, all in all, I guess you were pretty sure I
could not answer your apparently fair and honest questions.

I'll disappoint you. If my "Critics" pages had actually been on the
press at the moment your questions came in, I should have telegraphed
the publishers to yank off the plates and hold up the edition at my own
expense until I should have had time to polish off your interrogations.
Before starting in let me say to you