"I should tell you that I have taken you at your word entrusting me with
the entire charge of your interests here, and I had the store-room
adjoining the office put in shape, and offered it to the telegraph company
for half the rent they were paying in their former quarters over the
post-office. They have moved in; and this, in addition to giving us our
despatches direct, is a reduction of expense.
"Mr. Watts informs me that the Standard's offer is liberal and the terms
are settled. The boom is not hollow, it is simply an awakening; and the
town, so long a dependent upon the impetus of agriculture or its trade, is
developing a prosperity of its own on other lines as well. Strangers come
every day; oil has lubricated every commercial joint. Contracts have been
let for three new brick business buildings to be erected on the east side
of the Square. The value of your Main Street frontage will have doubled by
December, and possibly you may see fit to tear away the present building
and put up another, instead; the investment might be profitable. The
'Herald' could find room on the second and third floors, and the first
could be let to stores.
"I regret that you find your copy of the paper for the 29th overlooked in
the mail and that your messenger could find none for you at the newspaper
offices in Rouen. Mr. Schofield was given directions in regard to
supplying you with the missing issue at once.
"I fear that you may have had difficulty in deciphering some of my former
missives, as I was unfamiliar with the typewriter when I took charge of
the 'Herald'; however, I trust that you find my later letters more
legible.
"The McCune people are not worrying us; we are sure to defeat them. The
papers you speak of were found by Mr. Parker in your trunk, and are now in
my hands.
"I send with this a packet of communications and press clippings
indicative of the success of the daily, and in regard to other
innovations. The letters from women commendatory of our 'Woman's Page,'
thanking us for various house-keeping receipts, etc., strike me as
peculiarly interesting, as I admit that a 'Woman's Page' is always a
difficult matter for a man to handle without absurdity.
"Please do not think I mean to plume myself upon our various successes; we
attempted our innovations and enlargements at just the right time--a time
which you had ripened by years of work and waiting, and at the moment when
you had built up the reputation of the 'Herald' to its highest point.
Everything that has been done is successful only because you paved the
way, and because every one knows it is your paper; and the people believe
that whatever your paper does is interesting and right.