people I am not a bit
likely to write such things to you. I can't believe I have done
anything so ungrateful. If I have, pile coals of fire upon my head
for I deserve it. You have done magnificently with the business, &
we must raise the money somehow to enable you to reap a reward for
all that labor.

He was fond of Hall. He realized how honest and resolute and industrious
he had been. In another letter he wrote him that it was wonderful he had
been able to "keep the ship afloat in the storm that has seen fleets and
fleets go down"; and he added: "Mrs. Clemens says I must tell you not to
send us any money for a month or two, so that you may be afforded what
little relief is in our power."

The type-setter situation seemed to promise something. In fact, the
machine once more had become the principal hope of financial salvation.
The new company seemed really to begetting ahead in spite of the money
stringency, and was said to have fifty machines well under way: About the
middle of March Clemens packed up two of his shorter manuscripts which he
had written at odd times and forwarded them to Hall, in the hope that
they would be disposed of and the money waiting him on his arrival; and a
week later, March 22, 1893, he sailed from Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm
II, a fine, new boat. One of the manuscripts was 'The Californian's
Tale' and the other was 'Adam's Diary'.--[It seems curious that neither
of these tales should have found welcome with the magazines. "The
Californian's Tale" was published in the Liber Scriptorum, an Authors'
Club book, edited by Arthur Stedman. The 'Diary' was disposed of to the
Niagara Book, a souvenir of Niagara Falls, which contained sketches by
Howells, Clemens, and others. Harper's Magazine republished both these
stories in later years--the Diary especially with great success.]

Some joke was likely to be played on Mark Twain during these ocean
journeys, and for this particular voyage an original one was planned.
They knew how he would fume and swear if he should be discovered with
dutiable goods and held up in the Custom House, and they planned for this
effect. A few days before arriving in New York one passenger after
another came to him, each with a box of expensive cigars, and some
pleasant speech expressing friendship and appreciation and a hope that
they would be remembered in absence, etc., until he had perhaps ten or a
dozen very choice boxes of smoking material. He t