"I looked at my watch and found that the train would soon be starting for Boston, and I knew there was not much time to lose in trying to discover what had been his literary work during these last few years in Salem. I remember that I pressed him to reveal to me what he had been writing. He shook his head, and gave me to understand that he had produced nothing. At that moment 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 confident 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, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I would come back and see him again in a few days. 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 this thing was here? 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. It is either very good or very bad--I don't know which.' 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." In a letter to Bridge (April 10, 1850), the author said: "'The Scarlet Letter' has sold well, the first edition having been exhausted in ten days, and the second (5,000 in all) promising to go off rapidly." Speaking of the excitement created among his townspeople by the introductory account of the Custom House, he continued: "As to the Salem people, I really thought I had been exceedingly good-natured in my treatment of them. They certainly do not deserve good usage at my hands, after permitting me ... to be deliberately lied down, not merely once but at two separate attacks, on two false indictments, without hardly a voice being raised on my behalf; and then sending one of their false witnesses to Congress and choosing another as their Mayor. I feel an infinite contempt for them, and probably have expressed more of it than I intended; for my preliminary chapter has caused the greatest uproar that ever happened here since witch-times. If I escape from town without being tarred and feathered, I shall consider it good luck. I wish they _would_ tar and feather me--it would be such an entirely new distinction for a literary man! And from such judges as my fellow-citizens, I should look upon it as a higher honor than a laurel-crown." In the same letter he states that he has taken a house in Lenox, and shall move to it on the 1st of May: "I thank Mrs. Bridge for her good wishes as respects my future removals from office; but I should be sorry to anticipate such