“Accept my thanks for the two Messengers containing Miss Talley’s ‘Genius.’ I am glad to see that Griswold, although imperfectly, has done her justice in his late ‘Female Poets of America.’
“Enclosed I send you the opening chapter of an article called ‘Marginalia,’ published about three years ago in The Democratic Review.... My object in writing you now is to propose that I continue the papers in the Messenger, running them through the year at the rate of five pages each month, commencing with the March number. You might afford me, as before, I presume, $2 a page.... If you think well of my proposal, I will send you the two first numbers (10 pp.) immediately on receipt of a letter from you. You can pay me at your convenience, as the papers are published or otherwise....
“Very truly yours,
“EDGAR ALLAN POE.”
“Jno. R. Thompson, Esq.
“P. S.—I am about to bestir myself in the world of letters rather more busily than I have done for three or four years past, and a connection which I have established with two weekly papers may enable me, now and then, to serve you in respect to The Messenger.”
Our interview was interrupted by a handsome youth with a fashionable fur coat and who used very broken English.
He desired to buy autographs of French “big people,” and of composers and of musicians of all nations. Mr. Madigan brought out his royalty portfolios. Louis XIV. and Marie Antoinette were the star pieces. The youth did not hesitate long. He bought them and took about two dozen letters of musical people. He ordered them all framed and sent up to his studio. He offered English bank notes in payment of the bill (some four hundred odd dollars), but Mr. Madigan insisted on receiving United States currency, and so the man went to a nearby bank, returned shortly, and paid.
“What does he want with them?” I asked, astonished.
The whole transaction had lasted less than fifteen minutes.