I have lately heard, from good authority,
that the annual profit of the _Times_ is L40,000, and that a share in
the _Courier_ sold last week (wretchedly conducted, it seems) at the
rate of L100,000 for the property.
But this is not all. You know well enough that the business of a
publishing bookseller is not in his shop or even his connection, but in
his brains; and we can put forward together a series of valuable
literary works, and without, observe me, in any of these plans, the
slightest risk to Mr. Lockhart. And I do most solemnly assure you that
if I may take any credit to myself for possessing anything like sound
judgment in my profession, the things which we shall immediately begin
upon, as Mr. Lockhart will explain to you, are as perfectly certain of
commanding a great sale as anything I ever had the good fortune to
engage in.
Lockhart finally accepted the editorship of the _Quarterly_, after
negotiations which brought Mr. Disraeli on a second visit to Scotland,
but he undertook no formal responsibility for the new daily paper.
In London Disraeli was indefatigable. He visited City men, for the
purpose of obtaining articles on commercial subjects.
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