File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 8, page 70, September 18, 1856.jpg

Transcription:

Her [Allie Vernon's] recent sojourn at Staten Island, [William] Levison brought down, among the Picayune letters, one for "Bell Thorne" care of J. C. Haney — which "by mistake" he (Levison) opened. 'Twas from some paramour of the chaste Allie's — an impassioned, highly-colored salaciously scandalous business, out-heroding the famous Consuelo letter of the [Edwin] Forrest trial, and leaving little doubt of the nature of the intimacy between them. To the Tribune Office where I saw [Charles A.] Dana; to [Frank] Leslie's with information about certain Kansas photographer at the former place. Leslie asking me to step round to the Editorial rooms in Frankfort street, I discover Sol [Eytinge]'s hiding place. He twas at work in a little room, key inside — no response on knocking. Going to the Picayune Office I find Haney sick. He bids me caution Sol of his danger of being arrested for larceny on the box question; and tells me his side of the affair. Allie had tried impropriety with him, commencing by assuming penitence, acknowledging "she had been very foolish" in the past, and declaring she wished to be good &c. A correspondence took place between them, which Allie soon wished to make warmer than Haney expected. His old and just estimate of her character had become softened by her professions, disconsolations, simulations, but (he says) he didn't go in for an intrigue. She said he mistook her, and the like. Meantime he, Sol and Will Waud frequented her boarding house nocturnally,