Transcribe Hornaday, W. T. Letter to Ward, Henry A. (1882-01-27)

Mammoth, and draw an everlasting crowd ! </u Real > gorillas are scarce you know.

    Now that the gorilla is done I will begin at once, next

Monday, on my book and not stop until it is </u done >. Will you be willing for me to work every forenoon in the shop. (for money to live upon !) and work at my book every afternoon ? This arrangement will </s allow > ^yield> me $9. per week, not </u quite > enough for bread and butter. If I only had some important and well paying work in. the shop you might give me $3.50 per day for my half days., which would make me $12. per week, and would enable me to slide along quite comfortably, until the book is done. But unfortunately, there is very little work for me at present, and there is not likely to be any which will justify such a proceeding as the above.

    I am at last in a little luck. A bonanza is struck.

although it is a very small one. The publication of the </u Youth's Companion > have just paid me $15. for a little story, - </u How Ah Kee got Lost in the Jungle, - >, and have accepted me for a regular contributor saying that if I will make my stories stirring or even </u thrilling >, they " will pay me very liberally for them". Of course I am going to do my level best to make ^ a little^ money & a reputation. . Do you not think it would be best to </u not > publish in the </u Companion > my best hunting adventures, but save them for the book ? I intend to draw largely as possible on my Experiences in Florida, the W. I. and S. A. because this will not harm the book.

    My many thanks for your most unselfish kindness

in recommending me to Prof. Baird. It was </u all that I lacked to clinch matters > with him ! I am now as certain of receiving that position as anyone can be of a matter which is not in black and white. I went to Washington and saw Baird & Goode, had a long and very