"Halliday spends a good deal of his time in New York now," the letter read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition of the estate worked out for a month, and until we know about that, there won't anything come up of the first magnitude, and even if there should, you can handle it. I don't really expect to come back with the two million dollars for the L. & G. W., but I do hope to have it in sight!
"In all your prayers let me be remembered; 'if it don't do no good, it won't do no harm,' and I'll need all the help I can get. I'm going where the lobster à la Newburg and the Welsh rabbit hunt in couples in the interest of the Sure-Thing game; where the bird-and-bottle combine is the stalking-horse for the Frame-up; and where the Flim-flam (I use the word on the authority of Beaumont, Fletcher & Giddings) has its natural habitat. I go to foster the entente cordiale between our friends Pendleton and Halliday into what I may term a mutual cross-lift, of which we shall be the beneficiaries--in trust, however, for the use and behoof of the captives below decks.
"Giddings and Laura are here. I had them out to a box party last night. They are most insufferably happy. Clifford is not sane yet, but is rallying. He is rallying considerably; for he spoke of plans for pushing the _Herald_ Addition harder than ever when he gets home. And you know such a thing as business has never entered his mind for six months--unless it was business to write that 'Apostrophe to the Heart,' which he called a poem, and which, I don't mind admitting now, I hired his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.
"Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the _Times_, although there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend as much time at the Trescotts' as you can spare. You'll hear from me almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W. extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in the East, but it's sure to do good in the local fake market. Don't miss a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend--say 4%--on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move passing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of building new factories--anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out, unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can't be at these meetings. Will be back for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.