explanations in answer to their questions and requests. On September 17 Beethoven says he will attend to the copying of the works as soon as he has returned to Vienna, and send the Quartet by the middle of October; in November he is obliged to give two lessons a day to Archduke Rudolph and has no time to look after the matter; on December 5 the works are most certainly to be delivered to Fries and Co. within the current week; on December 17 it will be another week before the works can be delivered--the Archduke has but gone and he must look through the copy of the score several times--and he begs his correspondents not to think ill of him, for he had “never done anything wrong,” intimating that a certain publisher in Vienna was trying to seduce him from the Mayence firm and to that end was seeking to make them suspicious, etc.; meanwhile he offers for publication the overture which had been performed at his concert, six bagatelles and three songs in behalf of his brother to whom they belong, the price 130 ducats in gold. These were the works which Probst had agreed to purchase for 100 ducats and the money for which had been sent to Vienna. Schott agreed to buy them for 130 ducats and Beethoven wrote to his brother in Gneixendorf on December 24: “I inform you that Mayence will give 130 ducats in gold for your works: if Herr Probst will not pay as much, give them to Mayence, who will at once send you a cheque; these are really honest, not mean, business men.” Johann promptly put himself in communication with Schott and Sons and graciously confirmed the sale of the works at 130 florins, “out of respect” for his brother. Peters, who had been informed of the state of affairs concerning the Mass, evidently sent a complaint, or protest, to Beethoven, for on December 12, 1824, the latter informs the publisher that the case has been closed by his promise of the work to another publisher. He (Peters) should have received a quartet had the publishers who took the Mass not made the Quartet a condition of his acceptance. But he should surely have another quartet soon, or he was ready to make him a proposition for a larger work, in which case the sum which had been paid might be deducted from the new fee. Let Peters but be patient and he should be completely satisfied. Then follows this rebuke: You did wrong to _yourself_ and _to me_, and you are still doing the latter in, as I hear, accusing me of having sent you _inferior_ works. Did you not yourself ask for songs and bagatelles? Afterward it occurred to you that the fee was too large and that a larger work might have been had for it. That you showed yourself to be a poor judge of art in this is proved by the fact that several of these works have been and will be published, and such a thing never happened to me before.[119] As soon as I can I will liquidate my indebtedness to you, and meanwhile I remain, etc.