On January 27, 1862, he wrote, "The theatrical managers are all liars and thieves. The reason they decline my play is, they hope to get it by stealing it. They will play it fast enough the moment it has been brought out here and they can get it without paying a shilling for it. Your only plan is to let them know it shall never come into their hands gratis." In a letter undated, but written in the same month, he wrote, "My next story" ("Very Hard Cash"). "This is a matter of considerable importance. It is to come out first in 'All the Year Round,' and, foreseeing a difficulty in America, I have protected myself in that country by a stringent clause. The English publishers bind themselves to furnish me very early sheets and not to furnish them to any other person but my agent. This and another clause enable me to offer the consecutive early sheets to a paper or periodical, and the complete work in advance on that to a book-publisher. I am quite content with three hundred pounds for the periodical, but ask five per cent. on the book. It will be a three-volume novel,--a story of the day, with love, money, fighting, manoeuvring, medicine, religion, adventures by sea and land, and some extraordinary revelations of fact clothed in the garb of fiction. In short, unless I deceive myself, it will make a stir. Please to settle this one way or other, and let me know. I wrote to this effect to Messrs. Harper. Will you be kind enough to place this before them? If they consent, you can conclude with them at once." Messrs. Harper Brothers had always dealt very generously and courteously toward Mr. Reade, and they were offered "The Cloister and the Hearth" in the first instance, but did not feel willing to pay as high a royalty as Messrs. Rudd & Carleton did, in the then depressed condition of the book-trade and in view of their having previously published and paid for "A Good Fight," and hence the agreement made with the latter firm. They evinced a spirit of kind forbearance in refraining from printing a rival edition of the work, and Mr. Reade remained on very friendly terms with them to the end of his days. On February 13, 1862, he wrote from Magdalen College, Oxford, "I have defeated Conquest, and am just concluding the greatest drama I ever wrote,--viz., my own version of 'Never Too Late to Mend.' I will send you out a copy in manuscript, and hold back for publication. But I fear you will find that no amount of general reputation or particular merit of the composition offered will ever open the door of a Yankee theatre to a dramatic inventor. The managers are 'fences,' or receivers of stolen goods. They would rather steal and lose money than buy and make it. However, we will give the blackguards a trial."