From Frank Norris to Walter Hines Page, concerning a letter that Norris’s landlord evidently sent to Page (Norris’s publisher):
My Dear Mr. Page:
The old beast that wrote you I had forgotten to pay my rent will I hope die a sudden and violent death and fry on a particularly hot grid.
The last I heard from him was that he was hoping to sublet my old apartment so that I would not have to pay September’s rent. Very naturally I waited to hear from him again. And then he knifes me.
Well I sent him his damn money to day and may it perish with him.
Citation: MS Am 1090 (792), Houghton Library, Harvard University
