Now that deal is all settled, the next question is, do you need and must you require that $2,000 now?  Since last March, you know, I am carrying a mighty load, solitary and alone—­General Grant’s book—­and must carry it till the first volume is 30 days old (Jan. 1st) before the relief money will begin to flow in.  From now till the first of January every dollar is as valuable to me as it could be to a famishing tramp.  If you can wait till then—­I mean without discomfort, without inconvenience—­it will be a large accommodation to me; but I will not allow you to do this favor if it will discommode you.  So, speak right out, frankly, and if you need the money I will go out on the highway and get it, using violence, if necessary.

Mind, I am not in financial difficulties, and am not going to be.  I am merely a starving beggar standing outside the door of plenty—­obstructed by a Yale time-lock which is set for Jan. 1st.  I can stand it, and stand it perfectly well; but the days do seem to fool along considerable slower than they used to.

I am mighty glad you are with the Harpers.  I have noticed that good men
in their employ go there to stay. 
                              Yours ever,
          
                                   Mark.

     In the next letter we begin to get some idea of the size of Mark
     Twain’s first publishing venture, and a brief summary of results may
     not be out of place here.

The Grant Life was issued in two volumes.  In the early months of the year when the agents’ canvass was just beginning, Mark Twain, with what seems now almost clairvoyant vision, prophesied a sale of three hundred thousand sets.  The actual sales ran somewhat more than this number.  On February 27, 1886, Charles L. Webster & Co. paid to Mrs. Grant the largest single royalty check in the history of book-publishing.  The amount of it was two hundred thousand dollars.  Subsequent checks increased the aggregate return to considerably more than double this figure.  In a memorandum made by Clemens in the midst of the canvass he wrote.”

“During 100 consecutive days the sales (i. e., subscriptions) of General Grant’s book averaged 3,000 sets (6,000 single volumes) per day:  Roughly stated, Mrs. Grant’s income during all that time was $5,000 a day.”

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

HotelNormandie
newYork, Dec. 2, ’85. 
My dear Howells,—­I told Webster, this afternoon, to send you that $2,000; but he is in such a rush, these first days of publication, that he may possibly forget it; so I write lest I forget it too.  Remind me, if he should forget.  When I postponed you lately, I did it because I thought I should be cramped for money until January, but that has turned out to be an error, so I hasten to cut short the postponement.

I judge by the newspapers that you are in Auburndale, but I don’t know it officially.