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^[[(drafts of letters before April 28/44)]]

Dear Baron:

I am sorry not to be able to see you, as I had hoped to do right along, because, as I told you anew on Monday over the telephone, I feel confident that after talking to you for a few minutes you would have seen our point, thereby making an exchange of correspondence unnecessary.

Since I received your Registered letter of March 4th, time has passed. During the first weeks I was ill; later [[strikethrough]] yx [[/strikethrough]]I asked you ^[[several times]] for an interview which you postponed until last Monday when you [[strikethrough]] asked [[/strikethrough]] ^[[requested]] me to write to you.

You will not be surprised if I tell you that of course I cannot agree with the spirit of or the statements contained in your Registered letter of March 4th. It seems obvious to me, as I have told you over the telephone and also wrote you during our negotiations, as you will see from my letter of August 19th, 1943, that the tapestry could only be purchased for $6,300. from the firm [[strikethrough]] and that you gathered the implication [[/strikethrough]] ^[[and therefore]] that the tapestry was the firm's property; and that is why, as you will recall, the firm could not accept the two checks which you first suggested sending and which you finally did send and which we were compelled to return to you.

During our long drawn out negotiations, I repeated that the tapestry originally came from Count Zichy's collection and ultimately asked you to make payment for the price of $6,300. to the firm.

You will allow me to say that what actually happened between the time it left Count Zichy's collection and August [[strikethrough]] or September [[/strikethrough]] 1943, is really the firm's concern, as after all you bought the tapestry on its merit (after I had pointed out to you the restorations which were also indicated on the invoice that was mailed to you), and the transitory collections, if any, played no role.

^[[Obviously In reality]] Your main concern at the time was that the firm should not make a profit of more than $300. ^[[I]] I told you repeatedly and wrote you that this was the case, and I