5:20 P.M. Found W. writing a postal to Dr. Bucke. He had a letter from Bucke today (dated the 6th) in which B. told him of Kennedy's coming and departure. W. then said, "I suppose we may expect to have Kennedy step in on us any day now."
Day fearfully hot—temperature nearing 100—W. using his fan constantly. "There is a man hawking goods along the street here. I heard him at the top of his lungs asking at least a dozen people in this square, 'Is it hot enough for you, and you, and you today?' I was prepared to have him bawl it out to me," yet confessed that the heat "tried" him. Would go to the river at sundown.
We spoke somewhat of the "Annex to Annex" of "Leaves of Grass," but he is not yet prepared to go on with it. Thinks of it "before long." Talked of Ferguson. I asked if I had ever informed him of Brown's apology to me in a car one day for his printing of the birthday book? No, I had not, and now W. said, "After our disappointment, after the things we meant to do with the book and on his account could not do—his apologies find a very poor market with us," adding, "So far as his part of it was concerned it was a wretched botch—no credit to him, an obstacle to us."
Laughed over Kennedy's phrase in the article: "leather breeched Cobbler Fox."—"It is very funny; very good, too. The whole piece just that direct, just that rich phraseologically."