1892-03-11 to Clement Shorter

Autograph letter signed, British Library, 259 words

[Edited for paragraph breaks, capitalization, spelling and punctuation.]

8 Kings Bench Walk, Temple

Friday night [11 March 1892]

My dear Shorter

I must remind you that after all business is business. You ordered the story, you pressed me to write it and I put my novel aside so that I might oblige you. I do not think that the story can be returned.

I am sorry it does not please you and am willing to alter it — I am even willing to write you another story. The subject is an inundation. A young man invited to supper at the house of his intended — small tradesmen who live near a river. When it is time for him to leave the fields are covered with water. He stays the night. The river continues to rise and next morning the whole county is under water. I then tell the story of the various efforts of the family to escape. They are all drowned except an old man of eighty.

That is the bare outline of my story but I shall be able to fill it in with unexpected detail — how they try to kill time, how they try to forget their peril etc.

I think I am treating you very fairly in        offering to write a second story for, as you know, it is not customary to order work from a well-known writer and then return it to him. Please let me have a line from you.

Yours truly

George Moore