"Suffer me to notice one part of your letter respecting which you will
be happy to be put right. We are by no means trading beyond our capital.
It requires no professional knowledge to enable us to avoid so fatal an
error as that. For the few speculations we have entered into our means
have been carefully calculated and are perfectly adequate."

Yet at the close of the same letter, referring to the "British
Novelists"--a vast scheme, to which Mr. Murray had by no means pledged
himself--Ballantyne continues:

"For this work permit me to state I have ordered a font of types, cut
expressly on purpose, at an expense of near £1,000, and have engaged a
very large number of compositors for no other object."

On June 14, James Ballantyne wrote to Murray:

"I can get no books out yet, without interfering in the printing office
with business previously engaged for, and that puts me a little about
for cash. Independent of _this_ circumstance, upon which we reckoned, a
sum of £1,500 payable to us at 25th May, yet waiting some cursed legal
arrangements, but which we trust to have very shortly [_sic_]. This is
all preliminary to the enclosures which I hope will not be disagreeable
to you, and if not, I will trust to their receipt _accepted_, by return
of post."

Mr. Murray replied on June 20:

"I regret that I should be under the necessity of returning you the two
bills which you enclosed, unaccepted; but having settled lately a very