Clemens tries to persuade his friend and publisher James R. Osgood to invest in the Kaolatype Company, formed by Clemens to perfect and market a new process for casting stereotype plates from which book covers could be embossed: "My Dear Osgood -- The kaolatype stands are out, up to the present time, thirty or forty thousand dollars--the latter figure is nearest, perhaps. It has been a pretty uniform expense of $500 a month for 3 years & upwards; but there has been a scattering week or so, latterly, when it has paid its weeks' expenses. So I judge it won't be much of a trick to make her go, now. What will you give me for a fourth, fifth, or sixth interest?...In the first place, I want your brains, & after the business has begun to pay a fair & regular profit, I want an establishment started in Boston. Soon sell your shop-right as not, but would rather have you on board as member of the family...Meantime, don't forget to keep an eye on that Bierstadt [Albert?] business--we must be around in case anything happens to it." Clemens mentions his progress on the manuscript of Life on the Mississippi which was published by Osgood in May 1883: "My hope was, to be able to write 10,000 words a week, here. I was sick two or three days, in the beginning, & Jean's attack kept me worried for while; still, I have written my 5,000 words in the week & a half that I have been actually at work. Hope I can keep it up...MS in the hands of a copyist [i.e. typist H. M. Clarke of Elmira, N.Y.] here, would probably be unsafer than in the safe of Adams Express--so I think I will revise this, after a few days, & ship it to you without having it copied." At the end of the letter, "All hands well, now" is a reference to the fact that in the previous month his daughter Jean had suffered a bout with scarlet fever and his daughter Susy had also been ill. The postscript at the head of the first page reads: "P.S. Yes, I find no fault with Harley's darkies," and conveys Clemens's approval of the illustrations for Life on the Mississippi then being drawn by John J. Harley, who had also drawn some of the illustrations for The Prince and the Pauper.