conclusion with Jones, Mackay, and the other rich Californians who were to put up the necessary million for the machine’s manufacture.  Goodman was spending a large part of his time traveling back and forth between California and Washington, trying to keep business going at both ends.  Paige spent most of his time working out improvements for the type-setter, delicate attachments which complicated its construction more and more.

To Joe T. Goodman, in Washington: 

Hartford, June 22, ’90.  Dear Joe,—­I have been sitting by the machine 2 hours, this afternoon, and my admiration of it towers higher than ever.  There is no sort of mistake about it, it is the Big Bonanza.  In the 2 hours, the time lost by type-breakage was 3 minutes.

This machine is totally without a rival.  Rivalry with it is impossible.  Last Friday, Fred Whitmore (it was the 28th day of his apprenticeship on the machine) stacked up 49,700 ems of solid nonpareil in 8 hours, and the type-breaking delay was only 6 minutes for the day.

I claim yet, as I have always claimed, that the machine’s market (abroad and here together,) is today worth $150,000,000 without saying anything about the doubling and trebling of this sum that will follow within the life of the patents.  Now here is a queer fact:  I am one of the wealthiest grandees in America—­one of the Vanderbilt gang, in fact—­and yet if you asked me to lend you a couple of dollars I should have to ask you to take my note instead.

It makes me cheerful to sit by the machine:  come up with Mrs. Goodman and
refresh yourself with a draught of the same. 
                                        Ys ever
          
                                        mark.

The machine was still breaking the types now and then, and no doubt Paige was itching to take it to pieces, and only restrained by force from doing so.  He was never thoroughly happy unless he was taking the machine apart or setting it up again.  Finally, he was allowed to go at it—­a disasterous permission, for it was just then that Jones decided to steal a day or two from the Silver Bill and watch the type-setter in operation.  Paige already had it in parts when this word came from Goodman, and Jones’s visit had to be called off.  His enthusiasm would seem to have weakened from that day.  In July, Goodman wrote that both Mackay and Jones had become somewhat diffident in the matter of huge capitalization.  He thought it partly due, at least, to “the fatal delays that have sicklied over the bloom of original enthusiasm.”  Clemens himself went down to Washington and perhaps warmed Jones with his eloquence; at least, Jones seemed to have agreed to make some effort in the matter a qualified promise, the careful word of a wary politician and capitalist.  How many Washington trips were made is not certain, but certainly more than one.  Jones would seem to have suggested forms of contracts, but