Manchester, 31 May 1870 
My dear child, 

We were beginning to fret somewhat at the obstinate London 
taciturnity, but your letter has again cleared up the horizon. I 
think not that we shall stay longer than to the beginning of next 
week. 

My cold is not yet quite gone, but the general state of health has 
[been] wonderfully improved consequent upon the change of air. I 
see Gumpert almost daily and his advice is the more valuable the 
less he gets paid for it. 

Here things are going on pretty much in the old track. Fred is 
quite jolly since he has got rid of ‘den verfluchten” Commerce’. His 
book on Ireland‘—which by the by costs him a little more time 
than he had at first supposed—will be highly interesting. The 

a The signature is missing, the manuscript is damaged. - > damned - ¢ F. Engels, 
The History of Ireland. 

illustrious Doppelju* who is so much up in the most recent Irish 
history and plays so prominent a part in it, will there find his 
archeological material ready cut. 

Lange’s book” differs from an ‘Irish stew’ in that particular 
point that it is all sauce and no substance. This muddled meddler 
evidently intends to fish out some compliments from me in return 
for his ‘sweets’, but he is woefully mistaken. How much he has 
understood of the Capital is clearly shown by his discovery that my 
theory of ‘value’ has nothing whatever to do with the develop- 
ments on the Arbeitstag“ etc. 

Our friend Gumpert settles more and more down into a liberal, 
town-talk speaking, commonplace sort of fellow. What with his 
self-produced and with his ‘inherited’ family, this is hardly to be 
wondered at. It is too much of a good thing. 

Tussy looks very blooming and is quite merry. She has happily 
found the live stock at Mornington Palace™ increased by a new 
supply of kittens and so forth. She crossexamined Fred of course 
as to the ‘threatening letters’; he considered it dangerous to allude 
to such a thing in letters conveyed by post and possibly falling 
under the eye of some Stieber. The true Stieber, who, I see, is 
eagerly busying himself at Paris to hatch a new complot, in which 
the ‘Intern. W. Ass.’ is to play the principal part and where I, as 
his old protégé, and ‘wirklicher geheimer Oberhauptchef'* must of 
course put in my appearance. 

While I write these lines, damned Fred is bothering me by 
continual ‘fragmentary’ communications from the old Norse Sagas. 
Apropos of Norse Sagas, has Moéhmchen! not assisted at K. Blind’s 
poetical lecture Sunday last? 

Little Dakyns came over Saturday evening and stayed here on 
Sunday. This his visit was paid to Tussy and myself. This brave 
gnome was horselaughing all the time over. His costume was faster 
than ever before— papierne Vatermorder ohne Kravatte, a dirty 
white hat instead of the Scotch cap, and eine Sorte weisser Schuhe 
wie man sie at the seaside tragt." At our Sunday walk— 
Schorlemmer and Moore belonging of course to the party—his 
success with the general public was more than a succés d’estime. He 
created quite a sensation. 

a The reference is to Jenny Marx’s pseudonym: J. Williams. - > F. A. Lange, Die 
Arbeiterfrage. Ihre Bedeutung für Gegenwart und Zukunft (see also this volume, 
pp. 527-28). - © working day - 4 ‘real secret leader’ - € In the original: set - £ Marx’ 
wife, Jenny - a paper stand-up collar without a tie - » a kind of white shoes such as 
one wears at the seaside 

And now, illustrious Doppelju, give my best compliments to 
Moéhmchen and Lehnchen.’ I miss here very much the Marseillaise 
and all news from Paris. At the Schiller Club” they keep Le 
Temps, about the dullest of all the French papers. Also its 
editor-in-chief is one Nefftzer, an Alsacian. 

Addio, illustrious one. 

Old Nick