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13, BRYANSTON STREET, W.
Nov: 2: 09
My dear old John
I am pretty sick with you. Here have I been burying myself up for months with the hope of shortly seeing the Hamitic countenance of my auld and tried friend, and now you say calmly you are not coming. Seriously, John, I am beginning to despair of ever seeing you again. The only chance will be for me to come out to you - a jaunt I wish I could find time for.
Schoolbooks at home don't carry very high royalties for they have to be sold to the schools at a big discount and an
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enormous number of specimen copies have to be given away. For books such as you describe we should give a 10% royalty and £50 each on account. But there is no reason why you should not try for more. I would ask for £50 each on account, & a royalty of 10% rising to 12 1/2% after 5000 copies had been sold, and to 15% after 10,000 copies. If you get this you will do well, but if you get the other you won't do badly. I am very glad to hear you are doing so much writing.
When I come out we will go and climb
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at French Hoek together. It is a bonny bit.
We are back in London and have just been spending a last weekend with the Lionel Phillips who sail next Saturday. Harehope was a great success, & unless I go hunting in Newfoundland we will take it next year. I went up to the Highlands for some deer-stalking. You remember the Buchaille & the Glencoe hills. Well I stalked all round there & sair work it was. I slew a stag near the top of the Bidean nam Bian.
Politics are in a fine tangle just now. I rather agree with you about the Budget;
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It is bad finance, I think, but it is not really offensive. My quarrel about the Budget is much more for what it does not do than for what it does. I expect we shall have an election in January. What makes me sick is to think that the Radicals will probably have the appointments of the governor-generals of India, Canada & S. Africa, & if they appoint a miscreant like Winston & cretins like Herbert Gladstone and Pentland they deserve deep damnation.
I must get off to business. Kindest regards to you both in which my wife joins
Ever yours
John Buchan
