Sold a story to Harper's Magazine, slaved over it for three weeks and they paid me $200 for it. Now they've got me writing the story of my life in a book. they're "advancing" me $1,500 to write it and they figure it shouldn't take me more than six months. I don't mind for myself but the landlord worries.

Frank?

You still there'?

So I can't buy any books but back in October somebody introduced me to Louis the Duke de Saint-Simon in a miserable abridgement, and I tore around to the Society Library where they let you roam the stacks and lug everything home, and got the real thing. Have been wallowing in Louis ever since. The edition I'm reading is in six volumes and halfway through Vol. VI last night I realized I could not support the notion that when I take it back I will have NO louis in the house.

I swore I wouldn't write till I got work.

Hope Nora and the girls are fine. And you. And anybody else who knows me.

The translation I'm reading is by Francis Arkwright and it's delightful but I'll settle for any edition you can find that you trust. DO NOT MAIL IT! Just buy it and let me know what it costs and keep it there and I'll buy it from you one volume at a time.

Helene