Then came another letter from Dix. This time, Olmsted’s young partner said that everything at Putnam’s was copacetic. He’d merely panicked. Ignore my earlier letter, Dix urged, and don’t rush home on account of my overreaction. Stick around—enjoy England. The turnabout enraged Olmsted: “Write me in a fever of fear & trembling & what not one week—all going to the devil & no hot pitch to be had at any price unless I come home in my shirt tail to help you heat it up & then next day—all as smooth & jolly [as] a summer’s sea of champagne and icebreezes. Damn you for a high pressure hypochondriac.”
