stefansson-wrangel-09-20-051-001

November 12, 1923.

Dear Mr. Maurer:

I was hoping to be able to stop off in New Phila-
delphia on my way East from the lectures in Michigan but our legal
troubles in England are very urgent and my lawyers insisted that I
must come back to New York immediately. The trouble in England is,
as your sister has probably explained to you more fully, that not only
did Noice make an unauthorized bargain with the North American News-
paper Alliance in America, pocketing some of the money and trying to
get the rest, but he also led them to believe that he had the right to
sell them newspaper rights for Great Britain. I had previously sold
the rights in Great Britain on behalf of the heirs of the boys. The
price I got in England was $1,500. but the North American Newspaper
Alliance sold Noice's story in England to another purchaser. Now there
are two questions, first, that I may be compelled to give back the
$1,500. received on behalf of the relatives; and secondly, I may be
sued for damages, since one of the sales in England was made by myself
and the other was made by Noice who at the time he made it was acting
as our agent. The lawyers seem to think that the fact he deceived us
and disobeyed our orders does not relieve us from the legal responsi-
bility of carrying out bargains he made on our behalf while acting as
our agent.

These things are very distressing and I shall not
trouble you much with them, especially since they are likely to be
decided one way or another in the course of a few days, whereupon the
situation can be explained as it will finally stand.

I received this morning a very fine but also very
pathetic letter from Mrs. Galle. I am sending you a copy hoping it
will reach you before your young fellow-townsman starts for his drive
to Texas. If it does, you can talk it over with him and give him your
point of view on the things that are troubling Mrs. Galle. We must all
agree that Noice's unkind references to Knight are not only unjust but
in the very worst taste, even if they were true. I am quite unable to
see what point of view Mr. Noice could have had in saying these things,
for he ought to have realized that they would not only hurt everyone
concerned but injure himself as well.

In Canada the Noice story is doing the greatest harm
through his continual reiteration that the boys were young and inexper-
ienced. If anyone would take the trouble to go over the history of