Details
HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Typed letter signed ("Ernest" in pencil) to Jane Mason in Havana; Key West, 3 June 1935. 3 pages, square 8vo, single-spaced on two sheets, with 16 words in pencil in Hemingway's holograph (place and date, a correction, and closing and postscript), part of second page typed on a pull-away fold, usual creases, with the stamped envelope with address typed by Hemingway.
"IF YOU ARE ON THE WAGGONIAN I DRINK ENOUGH FOR ALL"
"...This is really a joint letter [with his wife Pauline] but I seem to be writing it. In awful hurry too. Flew back [to Key West from Bimini] to see the house [which Pauline was fixing up] and the kids and try to clear up my desk [,] get a couple of installments of [of Green Hills of Africa for Scribner's Magazine] and see if we have any cash. Desk impossible clear, installments off, we haven't any money. So that is that. Have just written Max [Perkins of Scribner's] to deposit some. He is paying the installments in installments...It will be swell to see you [in Bimini] and I wish it were going to be the 3rd (today) we would see you instead of three weeks. Bimini is really swell. A better place to swim than the long beach and marvellous fishing. If you are on the waggonian I drink enough for all...You will like that fishing very much daughter and we have hundreds of new improvements and comforts and new records and a swell crew with marvellous food [on his boat the Pilar]. Have been haveing [sic] a simply bloody marvellous time. Have learned to catch the fishes velly flast. 48 minutes on the last tuna...[tuna] are nowhere near as much fun to catch as big marlin. No jumping. Just a terrific run like a huge wahoo and then they plug. Still I would like to catch a thousand pounder. But a thousand pound aquja would be thirty times the fish to catch. It is only the sharks and the terrible deep water that make the tuna hard..."
"...[Pauline] looks simply marvellous [a natural brunette, she had died her hair blonde again, perhaps in competition with Jane]; sweller looking all the time. Very ash blonde; can't think of herself as ever haveing [sic] been anything but a blonde. Me I can think of her plenty of ways and all marvellous...Wonderful liquor is so cheap in Bimini. It's a shame you can't drink but as said Papa can and will drink for all. It certainly will be grand to see you again..."
"IF YOU ARE ON THE WAGGONIAN I DRINK ENOUGH FOR ALL"
"...This is really a joint letter [with his wife Pauline] but I seem to be writing it. In awful hurry too. Flew back [to Key West from Bimini] to see the house [which Pauline was fixing up] and the kids and try to clear up my desk [,] get a couple of installments of [of Green Hills of Africa for Scribner's Magazine] and see if we have any cash. Desk impossible clear, installments off, we haven't any money. So that is that. Have just written Max [Perkins of Scribner's] to deposit some. He is paying the installments in installments...It will be swell to see you [in Bimini] and I wish it were going to be the 3rd (today) we would see you instead of three weeks. Bimini is really swell. A better place to swim than the long beach and marvellous fishing. If you are on the waggonian I drink enough for all...You will like that fishing very much daughter and we have hundreds of new improvements and comforts and new records and a swell crew with marvellous food [on his boat the Pilar]. Have been haveing [sic] a simply bloody marvellous time. Have learned to catch the fishes velly flast. 48 minutes on the last tuna...[tuna] are nowhere near as much fun to catch as big marlin. No jumping. Just a terrific run like a huge wahoo and then they plug. Still I would like to catch a thousand pounder. But a thousand pound aquja would be thirty times the fish to catch. It is only the sharks and the terrible deep water that make the tuna hard..."
"...[Pauline] looks simply marvellous [a natural brunette, she had died her hair blonde again, perhaps in competition with Jane]; sweller looking all the time. Very ash blonde; can't think of herself as ever haveing [sic] been anything but a blonde. Me I can think of her plenty of ways and all marvellous...Wonderful liquor is so cheap in Bimini. It's a shame you can't drink but as said Papa can and will drink for all. It certainly will be grand to see you again..."