ones would have examined the machine and
approved, or done the other thing. If Jones should arrive here a week
or ten days from now (as he expects to do,) and should not approve,
and shouldn't buy any royalties, my deal with Arnot would not be
symmetrically square, and then how could I refund? The surest way was to
return his check.

I have talked with the madam, and here is the result. I will go down to
the factory and notify Paige that I will scrape together $6,000 to meet
the March and April expenses, and will retire on the 30th of April
and return the assignment to him if in the meantime I have not found
financial relief.

It is very rough; for the machine does at last seem perfect, and just a
bird to go! I think she's going to be good for 8,000 ems an hour in the
hands of a good ordinary man after a solid year's practice. I may be in
error, but I most solidly believe it.

There's an improved Mergenthaler in New York; Paige and Davis and I
watched it two whole afternoons.

With the love of us all,
MARK.

Arnot wrote Clemens urging him to accept the check for five thousand
dollars in this moment of need. Clemens was probably as sorely
tempted to compromise with his conscience as he had ever been in his
life, but his resolution field firm.

*****

To M. H. Arnot, in Elmira, N. Y.:

MR. M. H. ARNOT

DEAR SIR,--No--no, I could not think of taking it, with you unsatisfied;
and you ought not to be satisfied until you have made personal
examination of the machine and had a consensus of testimony of
disinterested people, besides. My own perfect knowledge of what is
required of such a machine, and my perfect knowledge of the fact
that this is the only machine that can meet that requirement, make it
difficult for me to realize that a doubt is possible to less well-posted
men; and so I would have taken your money without thinking, and thus
would have done a great wrong to you and a great one to myself. And now
that I go back over the ground, I remember that where I said I could get
along 3 months without drawing on you, that delay contemplated a visit
from you to the machine in the interval, and your satisfaction with its
character and prospects. I had forgotten all that. But I remember it
now; and the fact that it was not "so nominated in the bond" does not
alter the case or justify me in making my call so premature