The partners were sufficiently occupied.  Estimates and prices for vast quantities of paper were considered, all available presses were contracted for, binderies were pledged exclusively for the Grant book.  Clemens was boiling over with plans and suggestions for distribution.  Webster was half wild with the tumult of the great campaign.  Applications for agencies poured in.

In those days there were general subscription agencies which divided the country into districts, and the heads of these agencies Webster summoned to New York and laid down the law to them concerning the, new book.  It was not a time for small dealings, and Webster rose to the occasion.  By the time these men returned to their homes they had practically pledged themselves to a quarter of a million sets of the Grant Memoirs, and this estimate they believed to be conservative.

Webster now moved into larger and more pretentious quarters.  He took a store-room at 42 East 14th Street, Union Square, and surrounded himself with a capable force of assistants.  He had become, all at once, the most conspicuous publisher in the world.

CLV

DAYS WITH A DYING HERO

The contract for the publication of the Grant Life was officially closed February 27, 1885.  Five days later, on the last day and at the last hour of President Arthur’s administration, and of the Congress then sitting, a bill was passed placing Grant as full General, with full pay, on the retired army list.  The bill providing for this somewhat tardy acknowledgment was rushed through at the last moment, and it is said that the Congressional clock was set back so that this enactment might become a law before the administration changed.

Clemens was with General Grant when the news of this action was read to him.  Grant had greatly desired such recognition, and it meant more to him than to any one present, yet Clemens in his notes records: 

Every face there betrayed strong excitement and emotion except one —­General Grant’s.  He read the telegram, but not a shade or suggestion of a change exhibited itself in his iron countenance.  The volume of his emotion was greater than all the other emotions there present combined, but he was able to suppress all expression of it and make no sign.

Grant’s calmness, endurance, and consideration during these final days astonished even those most familiar with his noble character.  One night Gerhardt came into the library at Hartford with the announcement that he wished to show his patron a small bust he had been making in clay of General Grant.  Clemens did not show much interest in the prospect, but when the work was uncovered he became enthusiastic.  He declared it was the first likeness he had ever seen of General Grant that approached reality.  He agreed that the Grant family ought to see it, and that he would take Gerhardt with him next day in order that he might be within reach in case they had any suggestions.  They went to New York next morning, and called at the Grant home during the afternoon.