(3) [September 1851.] Excellent Erskine, Prince of Printers,--this is to intimate my intention of being in Edinburgh on Monday, and visiting your den about twelve, or so, when we shall complete all arrangements. I think I am in excellent time, and am backing slowly into the old rails, when you need rail no more! The matrimonial switch gives a wrong turn. The number may be easily discovered which marks _your_ marriage,--it is full of blunders of the Press! a perfect _type_ of your hallucination!--N. McL. (4) [Monday, 11 A.M., September 23, 1851.] I shall never transgress more if the firm forgive me, and the demons do not seize me and hotpress me. As a married man, Erskine, you should know something of the difficulties married men have experienced, since the days of the Patriarch of Uz to those of Paton & Ritchie, from wives. I will send off more MS. by post in the afternoon, and I shall see you on Monday between one and two. Don’t throw vitriol on me. Keep the printers off! The next refers to the birth of his first child: (5) My first volume is out on Friday--bound in calf-skin, with cloth-_guilt_ on the back and front, and very small type--less than a 64mo. Author and Publisher doing well. But I do not expect the sale to be great for eighteen years. I hope then some great London firm will purchase it for a handsome sum. I cannot, however, complain of the delivery by the trade as yet! I send you MS. All must be printed, and some more beside. Be calm, Erskine. (6) Master Erskine!--_You_ should have duly informed the editor of the _Christian Magazine_ that you had no sermon, seeing that a parson had pledged himself to send one a month ago, and I was under the impression that it was ‘all right’ until, coming up tonight from the coast, I found all was wrong. I send you--1. A MS. sermon--I cannot read it, but perhaps my friend the Interpreter in the printing-office can; 2. A printed sermon for a _patch_ in case you are too late. If you print the MS. you must _not_ put in the name--just sermon and text. I wrote it at a sitting, and it is imperfect--very. I leave this on Monday at 2 for the coast. Direct to Shandon, Helensburgh. If you have not enough, make up by extracts from the printed sermon. ‘O Erskine, Erskine! Had I but served my Parish as I have my Printer, It would not thus have left me in my misery!’ The following reply was sent to an invitation to the editor to grace a social meeting of the workers in the printing-office of Messrs. Paton & Ritchie:--