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----- I am resposible for what will be an increased gas bill here.  The room I work in now adjoins Dr.Z's room and is used by Dr. Rechinger, Fraulein Eckse (herb. clerk) and the man who does recording and the like.  This great room, about the size of our three put together, is eingeheizt by a "kleines Ofen," a gas burner about as big as we would use to boil a kettle.  Yet this little thing does make an appreciable difference in the temperature.  They all quit at 2 o'clock, and I am alone till 5:30 or 5:45.  The gas is left burning for me. I turn it off an hour or so before I quit.  I would much rather work out in the herb, but the pleurisy has not altogether left me, so I took advice and came into the"heated" room, where with woolen jacket and sweater on top of that I work in comparative warmth.  Will you please send Dr. Z $20 out of my money to reimburse the herbarium for the gas burned on my account, the labels I have used, etc.  Please make it sound official.-------I told you I asked Dr. Handel-Mazzetti if he had any grasses from China to exchange or sell.  He came in today and said he had taken out the grasses and would like to sell them.  The only way they can hope to publish the results of his 5 years' work is through money raised in this way.   There are only about 100 he said, he certainly neglected grasses. He was in Yunnan and other parts of China not visited by you.  I shall pay him, get a receipted bill, and the herb can buy them or not as it pleases.  We shall have the grasses anyway.  Dr. Swingle is so interested in China, maybe he will raise the amount.  I shall ship them with the collections from here.  I am paying 15 cents a sheet.  Please don't tell me I am"exceeding my authority" --I never had any authority to buy plants, but if I can find any poor soul who has Lehmann, Stübel, Ule, Glazieu, Weberbauer, or other things we need--grasses, I mean--who wants American dollars for them,I'll buy them too.  When one saves for years to go to Europe isn't one supposed to spend money!  I am going to try to find out from Hackel how we may become his successors in re-