“They were bent on devouring every pound of flesh in sight and picking the bones afterward, as Clemens and his wife were perfectly willing they should do.  I was getting a little warm all the time at the highhanded way in which these few men were conducting the thing, and presently I got on my feet and said, ’Gentlemen, you are not going to have this thing all your way.  I have something to say about Mr. Clemens’s affairs.  Mrs. Clemens is the chief creditor of this firm.  Out of her own personal fortune she has lent it more than sixty thousand dollars.  She will be a preferred creditor, and those copyrights will be assigned to her until her claim is paid in full.  As for the home in Hartford, it is hers already.’

“There was a good deal of complaint, but I refused to budge.  I insisted that Mrs. Clemens had the first claims on the copyrights, though, to tell the truth, these did not promise much then, for in that hard year the sale of books was small enough.  Besides Mrs. Clemens’s claim the debts amounted to one hundred thousand dollars, and of course there must be a definite basis of settlement, so it was agreed that Clemens should pay fifty cents on the dollar, when the assets were finally realized upon, and receive a quittance.  Clemens himself declared that sooner or later he would pay the other fifty cents, dollar for dollar, though I believe there was no one besides himself and his wife and me who believed he would ever be able to do it.  Clemens himself got discouraged sometimes, and was about ready to give it up, for he was getting on in years—­nearly sixty—­and he was in poor health.  Once when we found the debt, after the Webster salvage, was going to be at least seventy thousand dollars, he said, ‘I need not dream of paying it.  I never could manage it.’  But he stuck to it.  He was at my house a good deal at first.  We gave him a room there and he came and went as he chose.  The worry told upon him.  He became frail during those weeks, almost ethereal, yet it was strange how brilliant he was, how cheerful.”

The business that had begun so promisingly and prosperously a decade before had dwindled to its end.  The last book it had in hand was ’Tom Sawyer Abroad’, just ready for issue.  It curiously happened that on the day of the failure copies of it were filed in Washington for copyright.  Frank Bliss came over from Hartford, and Clemens arranged with him for the publication of ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson’, thereby renewing the old relationship with the American Publishing Company after a break of a dozen years.

Naturally, the failure of Mark Twain’s publishing firm made a public stir, and it showed how many and sincere were his friends, how ready they were with sympathy and help of a more material kind.  Those who understood best, congratulated him on being out of the entanglement.

Poultney Bigelow, Douglas Taylor, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dudley Warner, and others extended financial help, Bigelow and Taylor each inclosing him a check of one thousand dollars for immediate necessities.  He was touched by these things, but the checks were returned.  Many of his creditors sent him personal letters assuring him that he was to forget his obligation to them completely until such time as the remembering would cost him no uneasiness.