The Longmans, "honest, rugged, punctual-looking people," said little to the point, however, and then, through Lord Jeffrey's efforts in his behalf, Murray offered as follows: "The short of it is this: Murray will print an edition (750 copies) of Dreck on the half-profit system (that is, I getting _nothing_, but also giving nothing); after which the sole copyright of the book is to be mine...." Carlyle then tried Colburn & Bentley, but with his mind made up "unless they say about 100 l. I will prefer Murray." These negotiations came to nothing, and back he went to Murray, whose offer "is not so bad: 750 copies for the task of publishing poor Dreck, and the rest of him _our own_." The terms were accepted, the manuscript was sent to the printer, and a page set up, when Murray repented his bargain, which had never pleased him, and, having heard that Carlyle had carried his MS. elsewhere, he seized the opportunity to send the author a note saying that since he had, unbeknown to him, carried his book to "the greatest publishers in London, who had declined to engage in it," he must ask to have it read by some literary friend, before he could in justice to himself engage in the printing of it. The upshot was that the manuscript was returned to its author. "The printing of 'Teufelsdröckh,'" Carlyle says to his wife, "which I announced as commencing, and even sent you a specimen of, has altogether stopped, and Murray's bargain with me has burst into air. The man behaved like a pig, and was speared, but perhaps without art; Jack and I at least laughed that night _à gorge déployée_ at the answer I wrote his base _glare_ of a letter: he has written again in much politer style, and I shall answer him, as McLeod advised my grandfather's people, 'sharp but mannerly.' The truth of the matter is now clear enough; Dreck cannot be disposed of in London at this time. Whether he lie in my trunk or in a bookseller's coffer seems partly indifferent. Neither, on the whole, do I know whether it is not better that we have stopped for the present. Money I was to have none; author's vanity embarked on that bottom I have almost none; nay, some time or other that the book can be _so_ disposed of it is certain enough." Nearly two years later, in 1833, the unlucky Dreck was published "piecemeal," in ten parts of ten pages each, in _Fraser's Magazine_, beginning with November and running until August, 1834. With the shrewdness of his tribe, Fraser, fearing failure, paid only twelve guineas a sheet for the work, though he had been paying its author twenty guineas a sheet, five guineas more than he paid to any other contributor. It turned out, however, that he was wise, for the great essay was not a success, even in the magazine.