Dear Sam

Of what M r Gray loses by your absence one way, he gains

only a part the other - Your pay is 1 s. 6 d p r day - the

cost of your board is but half that - This I know by my

experience - for I am lately become a Housekeeper - When

we meet again I hope to give you a dinner - clear not

as at the 3 Tuns - & plentiful, not as at Queen's Square -

I have laid in a Stock of Apples, which your friend M rs Green

covers for me with a coat of rice - I hope to have your

opinion that in that form, by the help of a Julip of Wine & Butter they make a very pleasant

Bolus. For Meat I have a Machine by which upon occasion,

I could dress any thing myself without incessant watching,

burning out my eyes or greasing my fingers.

You complain of the multitude of your speculations upon

Euclid — clap them all down - it takes up less time

than considering whether they are necessary or no — When

you are in possession of a certain quantity, by surveying

them with this view, you may collect them into genera,

and so reduce the multitude of them, or rather the space

they occupy upon the paper, for the future. As to your scheme

of residing here, for about a fortnight at Christmas it is easily compossible, or rather

is concluded upon already — For any further contrivance,

you know it depends neither on you nor me, but

upon Queen's Square. There is one condition however on which

J.B. Nov r 1773.