"... I caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture was a story or stories by the author of the 'Twice-Told Tales,' and I became so positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He seemed surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my leave.... I was hurrying down the stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment. Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript in his hands, he said: 'How in Heaven's name did you know the thing was there? As you have found me out, take what I have written, and tell me, after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything....' On my way up to Boston I read the germ of 'The Scarlet Letter'; before I slept that night I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous story he had put into my hands, and told him that I would come again to Salem the next day and arrange for its publication." It was Hawthorne's first intention to make the romance one of a volume of several short stories, because, as he remarks to Mr. Fields: "A hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot; and, following his sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public outright with my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, I might have other chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the aggregate." But this plan was finally changed and it was decided to publish the story alone. There was then some talk about a title for it. "In this latter event" (the event of publishing alone), "it appears to me that the only proper title for the book would be 'The Scarlet Letter,' for 'The Custom House' is merely introductory...." And so it was decided. "If 'The Scarlet Letter' is to be the title," he asked Mr. Fields, "would it not be well to print it on the title-page in red ink? I am not quite sure about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be piquant and appropriate, and, I think, attractive to the great gull whom we are endeavoring to circumvent." The reader might ask the bibliophile if the red title line, for it was printed in that way, really did have anything to do with the circumventing which eventually took place. On February 4, 1850, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridges: "I finished my book yesterday, one end being in the press in Boston, while the other was in my head here in Salem; so that, as you see, the story is at least fourteen miles long."