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Meantime, Webster was no longer active in the management.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 most of the time.  Its burdens had fallen upon his assistant, Fred J. Hall, a willing, capable young man, persevering and hopeful, lacking only years and experience.  Hall worked like a beaver, and continually looked forward to success.  He explained, with each month’s report of affairs, just why the business had not prospered more during that particular month, and just why its profits would be greater during the next.  Webster finally retired from the business altogether, and Hall was given a small partnership in the firm.  He reduced expenses, worked desperately, pumping out the debts, and managed to keep the craft afloat.