London, 9 December 1868 

Dear Frep, 

Best THANKS FoR £5. 

I forgot to enclose the Russian.“ Follows herewith. In addition 
Sigfrid Meyer**? (The Druryof whom he speaks is a fishy customer 
who was formerly in London and who wished to push himself 
onto the Centra, Counc. He impressed S. Meyer by his public 
appearances in New York. Meyer wrote to us that we should really 
appoint Drury as our agent. I replied to him‘ that Mr Drury had 

a gaol - > Demokratisches Wochenblatt - < See this volume, p. 172. - 4 Marx means the 
letter of A. A. Serno-Solovyevich. - ¢ See this volume, p. 97. 

already had himself ‘recommended’ to us in this capacity by 
Cremer, Huleck, etc. We did not want him.) 

Finally a reappearance carv from Nincompoop.* This letter is 
very characteristic of him. Schily took him to Lafargue et Co. 
You know that in Paris you can only move in on the terme.” Lafargue 
and Laura thus lived in a chambre garnie,° high up, until about a 
fortnight ago (when they found lodgings, and we sent them their 
chests and boxes). The first thing Borkheim said when he came to 
visit them with Schily: “This has put me quite out of breath. I would 
not like often to climb so high!’ And now his marginal notes, which 
he sends to me! Incidentally, he has kept his , promise about 
‘not-climbing’. Lafargue had bought the Ténot,’ but since the 
postage to London is dear, Borkheim was supposed to bring the 
book here on his return journey to Bordeaux. But he was not seen 
again. 

And this reminds me of another anecdote concerning Bork- 
heim. Shortly before Lafargue left, Borkheim invited him and 
my family to dinner (Laura did not go). After the ‘gentlemen’ had 
retired to Borkheim’s srupy—the gentlemen were Lafargue, Bork- 
heim and myself—Borkheim related all sorts of gossip told or 
published by one person or another about me. I let him have his 
head for a time, while Lafargue rocked crossly backwards and 
forwards in his chair. Finally I interrupted him and said: It was 
altogether extraordinary what gossip went round in the world. 
Engels and I could tell the best stories about this, because we 
possessed proper archives about the refugees. For instance, when 
he—Borkheim—came from Switzerland to England, we received 
a report that he was an agent of the Prussian Count X° (I cannot 
just Now recall the name), who was himself a Prussian spy, and that 
it had been this count that had sent him to Switzerland, etc. 
Borkheim exploded like a bomb. ‘He had never thought that 
anybody at all in London knew anything about this story, etc.’ He 
then started to tell the story at great length and in great detail 
and, in his excitement, pumped too much hot water and even more 
BRANDY into himself. In this overworkep condition we then returned 
to the ladies for tea, and Borkheim at once burst out with the 
announcement that I had given him Tue Most strange surprise Of his 
life. He then told the same story three times in succession, to the 
great annoyance of his wife, since all sorts of females play a role in 

S. Borkheim - > beginning of the quarter - ¢ furnished room - 4 E. Ténot, Paris 
en décembre 1851..., Paris, 1868. E. Ténot, La Province en décembre 1851 ... Paris, 1868, 
See also this volume, p. 188. - © Heinemann 

it. Later he wrote to me twice: I had obviously been joking, he had 
probably himself told me the gossip about him, etc. I, however, 
remained serious. (We had learned about the business from Schily, 
in one of his letters from Paris, at the time of the Vogt affair.) 
There must be punishment! 

Apropos. Something that remained a mystery to me for a long 
time was this: during the 3 years of the cotton famine, where did 
the English get all that cotton, even for the diminished SCALE OF 
propuction? “6 It was impossible to explain this from the official 
Statistics. Despite all the imports from India, etc., there was seen 
to be quite an enormous deficit if you calculated the exports 
to the Continent (and even the occasional ones to New England). 
Nothing, or almost nothing, remained for Home consumption. The 
business was easily solved. It has now been proved (a fact perhaps 
known to you, but new to me) that, at the outbreak of the Civil 
War, the English had verbotenus* approximately 3 years’ stock 
(naturally for a DIMINISHED SCALE OF PRODUCTION). What a fine crash that 
would have produced if the Civil War had not broken out! 

The exports OF YARN and MANUFACTURED Goops in 1862, 1863 and 
1864 were=1,208,920,000 Ibs (reduced To yarn) and the _ supp.ies 
(IMPORTS) (REDUCED TO EQUIVALENT WEIGHT IN yarn)=1,187,369,000 Ibs.” 
In the first figure, the surplus of baryta hidden in the Manufactured 
coops has probably been overlooked. Even so, the result 
roughly emerges that the entire Home supply was met from existing 
stocks. 

Salut. 
Your 
K. M.