P.S. Would any additional compensation induce you to allow each number to be illustrated by a colored engraving?
Yr obt serv'ts.
THE AUTHOR TO THE PUBLISHERS.
GENTLEMEN,—
In reply to your polite request, I have to say, that under no circumstances can I entertain your proposition to write a fictitious narrative. I could, however, relate some very interesting events which have come to my knowledge, and which, if told in a connected form, might undoubtedly be taken by the public for a work of fiction. I think my narrative, with some collateral matter I should introduce, would take up a reasonable space in about a dozen numbers of the Oceanic Miscellany. I cannot listen to your proposal about the engraving. If you accept my offer to write out, in the form of a story, the incidents of real life to which I have referred, we will arrange the terms at a private interview. I consider the first day of a month as unobjectionable as any other in the same month, as a time for receiving payment of any sum that may be due me under the proposed contract.
Yours truly.
CONFIDENTIAL EDITOR OF THE OCEANIC MISCELLANY TO THE AUTHOR.
MY DEAR PROF.,—
We have had lots of bob-tail stories,—docked short in from one to three months. Can't you give us a switch-tail one, that will hang on so as to touch next December? Something imaginary, based on your recollections,—the incidents of the War of 1812, for instance;—but, at any rate, a regular "to be continued" "pièce de résistance"
Yours ever.