less sadly told.

A variety of books followed. Henry Ward Beecher agreed to write an
autobiography, but he died just when he was beginning the work, and
the biography, which his family put together, brought only a moderate
return. A book of Sandwich Islands tales and legends, by his Hawaiian
Majesty King Kalakaua, edited by Clemens's old friend, Rollin M.
Daggett, who had become United States minister to the islands, barely
paid for the cost of manufacture, while a volume of reminiscences by
General Hancock was still less fortunate. The running expenses of the
business were heavy. On the strength of the Grant success Webster had
moved into still larger quarters at No. 3 East Fifteenth Street, and
had a ground floor for a salesroom. The force had become numerous and
costly. It was necessary that a book should pay largely to maintain this
pretentious establishment. A number of books were published at a heavy
loss. Never mind their titles; we may forget them, with the name of the
bookkeeper who presently embezzled thirty thousand dollars of the firm's
money and returned but a trifling sum.

By the end of 1887 there were three works in prospect on which great
hopes were founded--'The Library of Humor', which Howells and Clark
had edited; a personal memoir of General Sheridan's, and a Library of
American Literature in ten volumes, compiled by Edmund Clarence Stedman
and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. It was believed these would restore
the fortunes and the prestige of the firm. They were all excellent,
attractive features. The Library of Humor was ably selected and
contained two hundred choice drawings by Kemble. The Sheridan Memoir was
finely written, and the public interest in it was bound to be general.
The Library of American Literature was a collection of the best American
writing, and seemed bound to appeal to every American reading-home. It
was necessary to borrow most of the money required to build these books,
for the profit made from the Grant Life and less fortunate ventures was
pretty well exhausted. Clemens presently found a little drift of his
notes accumulating at this bank and that--a disturbing condition, when
he remembered it, for he was financing the typesetting machine by this
time, and it was costing a pretty sum.

Meantime, Webster was no longer active in the management. In two years
he had broken down from overwork, and was now desperately ill with an
acute neuralgia that kept him away from the business m