wild thing that had regained liberty.

He refers to Susy's recent illness and to Mrs. Clemens's own poor state
of health.

Dear, dear Susy! My strength reproaches me when I think of her and
you.

It is an unspeakable pity that you should be without any one to go
about with the girls, & it troubles me, & grieves me, & makes me
curse & swear; but you see, dear heart, I've got to stick right
where I am till I find out whether we are rich or whether the
poorest person we are acquainted with in anybody's kitchen is better
off than we are. . I stand on the land-end of a springboard, with
the family clustered on the other end; if I take my foot----

He realized his hopes to her as a vessel trying to make port; once he
wrote:

The ship is in sight now ....

When the anchor is down then I shall say:

"Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it
again!"

I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it; I will
swim in ink! 'Joan of Arc'--but all this is premature; the anchor
is not down yet.

Sometimes he sent her impulsive cables calculating to sustain hope. Mrs.
Clemens, writing to her sister in January, said:

Mr. Clemens now for ten days has been hourly expecting to send me
word that Paige had signed the (new) contract, but as yet no
despatch comes . . . . On the 5th of this month I received a
cable, "Expect good news in ten days." On the 15th I receive a
cable, "Look out for good news." On the 19th a cable, "Nearing
success."

It appealed to her sense of humor even in these dark days. She added:

They make me laugh, for they are so like my beloved "Colonel."

Mr. Rogers had agreed that he would bring Paige to rational terms, and
with Clemens made a trip to Chicago. All agreed now that the machine
promised a certain fortune as soon as a contract acceptable to everybody
could be concluded--Paige and his lawyer being the last to dally and
dicker as to terms. Finally a telegram came from Chicago saying that
Paige had agreed to terms. On that day Clemens wrote in his note-book:

This is a great date in my history. Yesterday we were paupers with but 3
months' rations of cash left and $160,000 in debt, my wife & I, but this
telegram makes us wealthy.

But it was not until a fortnight later that Paige did actually sign. This
was on the 1st of February, '94, and Clemens that night cabled to Pari