Dear Frankie.

附上"千万不能掉了"的十元钞票,它务必平安到达你们手里.倒不是最近发了什么横财,而是路易要我不能留他一个未赎之身.他在法庭上受够了俗不可耐的赖债痞子,可不希望保持了两百七十年的清誉毁于一旦.

Thought of you last night, my editor from Harper's was here for dinner, we were going over this story-of-my-life and we came to the story of how I dramatized Landor's" Aesop and Rhodope" for the "Hallmark Hall of Fame." Did I ever tell you that one? Sarah Churchill starred as Landor's dewy-eyed Rhodope. The show was aired on a Sunday afternoon. Two hours before it went on the air, I opened the New York Times Sunday book review section and there on page 3 was a review of a book called A House Is Not a Home by Polly Adler, all about whorehouses, and under the title was the photo of a sculptured head of a Greek girl with a caption reading: "Rhodope, the most famous prostitute in Greece." Landor had neglected to mention this. Any scholar would have known Landor's Rhodope was the Rhodopis who took Sappho's brother for every dime he had but I'm not a scholar, I memorized Greek endings one stoic winter but they didn't stay with me.

Enclosed-please-God-please-find a $10 bill, it better get there, not many of those float in here these days but louis wanted me to get him paid off, he got so tired of the deadbeats at court he didn't want to move in with one 270 years later.

hh

xx

So we were going over this anecdote and Gene (my editor) said "Who is Landor?" and I plunged into an enthusiastic explanation-and Gene shook her head and cut in impatiently: "You and your Olde English books!"

You see how it is, frankie, you're the only soul alive who understands me.

p. s. Gene's Chinese.