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 assistants
Earll | & mechanical
Graham | experts
Bates, foreman, and S. L. Clemens.
This record is made immediately after the prodigious event.

Two days later he made another note:

Monday, January 7--4.45 P.m. The first proper name ever set by this
new keyboard was William Shakspeare. I set it at the above hour; &
I perceive, now that I see the name written, that I either
misspelled it then or I've misspelled it now.

The space-bar did its duty by the electric connections & steam &
separated the two words preparatory to the reception of the space.

It seemed to him that his troubles were at an end. He wrote overflowing
letters, such as long ago he had written about his first mining claims,
to Orion and to other members of the fami