American Literature, which Webster
had undertaken to place in a million American homes. There was plenty
of sale for it--indeed, that was just the trouble; for it was sold on
payments--small monthly payments--while the cost of manufacture and
the liberal agents' commissions were cash items, and it would require a
considerable period before the dribble of collections would swell into
a tide large enough to satisfy the steady outflow of expense. A sale
of twenty-five sets a day meant prosperity on paper, but unless capital
could be raised from some other source to make and market those books
through a period of months, perhaps even years, to come, it meant
bankruptcy in reality. It was Hall's job, with Clemens to back him, to
keep their ship afloat on these steadily ebbing financial waters. It
was also Hall's affair to keep Mark Twain cheerful, to look pleasant
himself, and to show how they were steadily getting rich because orders
were pouring in, though a cloud that resembled bankruptcy loomed always
a little higher upon the horizon. If Hall had not been young and an
optimist, he would have been frightened out of his boots early in the
game. As it was, he made a brave steady fight, kept as cheerful and
stiff an upper lip as possible, always hoping that something would
happen--some grand sale of his other books, some unexpected inflow from
the type-setter interests--anything that would sustain his ship until
the L. A. L. tide should turn and float it into safety.

Clemens had faith in Hall and was fond of him. He never found fault with
him; he tried to accept his encouraging reports at their face value.
He lent the firm every dollar of his literary earnings not absolutely
needed for the family's support; he signed new notes; he allowed Mrs.
Clemens to put in such remnants of her patrimony as the type-setter had
spared.

The situation in 1893 was about as here outlined. The letters to Hall of
that year are frequent and carry along the story. To any who had formed
the idea that Mark Twain was irascible, exacting, and faultfinding, they
will perhaps be a revelation.

*****

To Fred J. Hall, in New York:

FLORENCE, Jan. 1, '93.

DEAR MR. HALL,--Yours of Dec. 19 is to hand, and Mrs. Clemens is deeply
distressed, for she thinks I have been blaming you or finding fault with
you about something. But most surely that cannot be. I tell her that
although I am prone to write has