I am wondering if you could within the next week secure some estimate for the casting from some reliable concern. I have no thought of your giving the contract to anyone at present, for I think the prices are apt to decline further; but I would like to get some definite estimate. The way many sculptors and other people are constantly putting it up to me--that the casting can never be completed and the work delivered for anything like your contract price--would unsettle my nerves were I not so sure of you and your ability to put through anything you undertake. But I would feel relieved to see some cost estimates just the same. In answer to Mr. Lum, whose chief concern now was that the sculptor was putting so much into the memorial that he could expect no profit for himself, Gutzon sent a list of bronzes he had produced, with a careful comparison of size, weight and cost. His conclusion was that the forty-two figures of the Wars of America were equal to about sixteen single figures and that the contract price of $100,000 would “see him through.” As a matter of safety, he added, he was corresponding with European bronze casters who might do the work for much less than would be charged in this country. He was dismayed when the American estimates came in--from the Gorham Company, $123,000; from Roman Bronze, $87,000; from Henry Bonnard, $78,857. This meant that every bit of the available money would be spent for the bronze casting alone, which is usually less than half the cost of a monument. It was an immense relief when from the Vignali Brothers of Florence, Italy, came an estimate of 475,000 lire, which at that time, October 1921, was worth about $20,000. A contract was signed to the effect that the monument would be shipped from New York in eight sections (plaster casts) and that the first bronze section was to be returned not later than February 1, 1922, and the other seven sections before the end of the same year. And then the misfortune that had dogged the sculptor if ever he went into a business deal was again at his heels. He had an Italian friend in the United States who said he was going abroad and for the honor of being a part of so noble a work would gladly make all the business arrangements with the Vignali firm. Into the contract the friend inserted two wholly unexpected clauses--that the sculptor was to be penalized for every day’s delay in getting the plaster casts to Florence, and that the friend was to receive a ten-per-cent commission on such a penalty as well as on the contract with the sculptor himself. It was later learned that the friend sued Vignali for refusing to inflict the penalty on the sculptor. Vignali, being familiar with the optimism of art, had never expected Gutzon to deliver the models on time.