In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. They have been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not knowing what empty seats there may be. _We_ could sell at our box-office to any extent; but _we_ can't buy back of the speculators, because we informed the public that all the tickets were gone. And if we bought _under_ our own price and _sold_ at our own price, we should at once be in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! Dolby, the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his senses; and I should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not comically disagreeable. Nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. At Baltimore on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they came out: "When will Mr. Dickens read here again?" "Never." "Nonsense! Not come back, after such houses as these? Come. Say when he'll read again." Just the same here. We could as soon persuade them that I am the President, as that I am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow night. There is a child of the Barney Williams's in this house--a little girl--to whom I presented a black doll when I was here last. I have seen her eye at the keyhole since I began writing this, and I think she and the doll are outside still. "When you sent it up to me by the coloured boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter), "I gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I creamed a cream of joy." _She_ had a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to my infinite confusion. A friend all stockings, and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird. [Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.] NEW YORK, _Monday, Feb. 17th, 1868._ I got your letter of the 3rd of February here this morning. As I am off at seven to-morrow morning, I answer it at once, though indeed I have nothing to say. "True American" still sticking to me. But I am always ready for my work, and therefore don't much mind. Dolby and the Mayor of Newhaven alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. In writing out some advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake. "The reading will be comprised within two _minutes_, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be seated ten _hours_ before its commencement."