to Sidney Colvin

[Monterey, December 1879.]

To-day, my dear Colvin, I send you the first part of the Amateur Emigrant, 71 pp., by far the longest and the best of the whole.  It is not a monument of eloquence; indeed, I have sought to be prosaic in view of the nature of the subject; but I almost think it is interesting.

Whatever is done about any book publication, two things remember: I must keep a royalty; and, second, I must have all my books advertised, in the French manner, on the leaf opposite the title.  I know from my own experience how much good this does an author with book buyers.

The entire A. E. will be a little longer than the two others, but not very much.  Here and there, I fancy, you will laugh as you read it; but it seems to me rather a clever book than anything else: the book of a man, that is, who has paid a great deal of attention to contemporary life, and not through the newspapers.

I have never seen my Burns! the darling of my heart!  I await your promised letter.  Papers, magazines, articles by friends; reviews of myself, all would be very welcome, I am reporter for the Monterey Californian, at a salary of two dollars a week!  Comment trouvez-vous ça?  I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre.  The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance.  It was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning.  But I think the nickname will stick.  Dos Reales; deux réaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses of beer would cost two bits.  The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian, is a splendid fellow.

R. L. S.