der to prepare his memoirs. But
Grant had become a financier, as he believed, and the prospect of
literary earnings, however large, did not appeal to him.
Furthermore, he was convinced that he was without literary ability
and that a book by him would prove a failure.

But then, by and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he
had foreseen--the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic
rascality of Ward. General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left
without income and apparently without the means of earning one. It
was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the
Century Magazine. General Grant, hard-pressed, was induced by the
editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could
write them, became interested in the idea of a book. It is
unnecessary to repeat here the story of how the publication of this
important work passed into the hands of Mark Twain; that is to say,
the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., the details having been fully
given elsewhere.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. cliv.]--

We will now return for the moment to other matters, as reported in
order by the letters. Clemens and Cable had continued their
reading-tour into Canada, and in February found themselves in
Montreal. Here they were invited by the Toque Bleue Snow-shoe Club
to join in one of their weekly excursions across Mt. Royal. They
could not go, and the reasons given by Mark Twain are not without
interest. The letter is to Mr. George Iles, author of Flame,
Electricity, and the Camera, and many other useful works.

*****

To George Iles, far the Toque Blew Snow-shoe Club, Montreal:

DETROIT, February 12, 1885.

Midnight, P.S.

MY DEAR ILES,--I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it,
explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day
for social life. I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have
to lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an
hour at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so. Unless I get
a great deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the
platform, and turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it
ought always to be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment. Usually it is
just this lat