chine was
complete all other machines would disappear. Even the fact that the
Tribune had ordered twenty-three of the linotypes, and other journals
were only waiting to see the paper in its new dress before ordering,
did not disturb them. Those linotypes would all go into the scrap-heap
presently. It was too bad people would waste their money so. In January,
1888, Paige promised that the machine would be done by the 1st of April.
On the 1st of April he promised it for September, but in October he
acknowledged there were still eighty-five days' work to be done on it.
In November Clemens wrote to Orion:

The machine is apparently almost done--but I take no privileges on that
account; it must be done before I spend a cent that can be avoided. I
have kept this family on very short commons for two years and they must
go on scrimping until the machine is finished, no matter how long that
may be.

By the end of '88 the income from the books and the business and Mrs.
Clemens's Elmira investments no longer satisfied the demands of the
type-setter, in addition to the household expense, reduced though
the latter was; and Clemens began by selling and hypothecating his
marketable securities. The whole household interest by this time
centered in the machine. What the Tennessee land had been to John and
Jane Clemens and their children, the machine had now become to Samuel
Clemens and his family. "When the machine is finished everything will be
all right again" afforded the comfort of that long-ago sentence, "When
the Tennessee land is sold."

They would have everything they wanted then. Mrs. Clemens planned
benefactions, as was her wont. Once she said to her sister:

"How strange it will seem to have unlimited means, to be able to do
whatever you want to do, to give whatever you want to give without
counting the cost."

Straight along through another year the three thousand dollars and more
a month continued, and then on the 5th of January, 1889, there came what
seemed the end--the machine and justifier were complete! In his notebook
on that day Mark Twain set down this memorandum:

EUREKA!

Saturday, January 5, 1889-12.20 P.M. At this moment I have seen a
line of movable type spaced and justified by machinery! This is the
first time in the history of the world that this amazing thing has
ever been done. Present:
J. W. Paige, the inventor;
Charles Davis, | Mathematical assistant