On the next day he wrote, "I am a careful man, and counted every page I sent you, and sealed and posted them with my own hand. I am quite satisfied with the agreement with Rudd & Carleton, if there is to be no false printer's return. The only thing that makes me a little uneasy is your apparent confidence that they could not cheat us out of twenty thousand dollars by this means if extraordinary vigilance were not used. They can, and will, with as little remorse as a Newgate thief would, unless singular precautions are used. If I was there I would have a secret agent in the printing-house to note each order, its date and amount, in writing. The plates being yours, you have, in fact, a legal right to inspect the printer's books. But this is valueless. The printer would cook his books to please the publisher. You can have no conception of the villany done under all these sharing agreements. But forewarned forearmed. Think of some way of baffling this invariable fraud. Ask a knowing printer some way. Do anything but underrate the danger. "The importance of the work not being the least foreseen, I believe Rudd & Carleton have 'The Cloister' all to themselves.... Every American who has seen Ticknors' returns assures me they are false, and ridiculously so. It goes against my heart to believe it, but everybody is seldom wrong. My opinion is they will all make a false return if they can. _Verbum sap._ And now, my dear boy, let me thank you for all the trouble you have taken in this complicated affair, and assure you that if I am anxious for a just return it is partly in order that I may be in a position to take care of _you_. For I am sure if _I_ don't nobody else will. "'Nobs and Snobs,' a play, has gone out in Low's parcel. If the managers will be quick, you can make this copyright by not calling it 'Honor before Titles'" (the sub-title under which it had been copyrighted in England). "Then, to bind the thing together, I write a different conclusion to the second act, and send it you enclosed. It is hasty, but it will do; and if you can get Jem Wallack to play Pierre, he will do wonders with the change from drunkenness to sobriety and then to incipient madness. The only stage directions required will occur at once to you. Drop should fall on Pierre with a ghastly look, like a man turned to stone, between the two females. I now close, wishing us both success in this attempt to open new veins of ore. I have other plays in manuscript, and one in progress."