Oh! old Friend!
Must you, too, make life hard to me by seeing a slight in my getting my wife to answer an inquiry of yours, when it has to be done at the very time that I am sitting at my score?
There seem to be idlers who can always write letters! — perhaps it happens to myself at times.
Dearest — the enclosure I return to you — with 1000 thanks (of course). I cannot possibly present myself before our Patrons with such facetiae!
Much thanks for all friendship!
Always your
old
Rich. Wagner.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner to Emil Heckel, with a Brief History of the Bayreuth Festivals, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 93