one half the profits.  Clemens, however, had never been fully satisfied, and his brother Onion had more than once urged him to demand a specific contract on the half-profit basis.  The agreement for the publication of ‘A Tramp Abroad’ was made on these terms.  Bliss died before Clemens received his first statement of sales.  Whatever may have been the facts under earlier conditions, the statement proved to Mark Twain’s satisfaction; at least, that the half-profit arrangement was to his advantage.  It produced another result; it gave Samuel Clemens an excuse to place his brother Onion in a position of independence.

To Onion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: 

Sunday, Oct 24 ’80.  My dear Bro.,—­Bliss is dead.  The aspect of the balance-sheet is enlightening.  It reveals the fact, through my present contract, (which is for half the profits on the book above actual cost of paper, printing and binding,) that I have lost considerably by all this nonsense—­sixty thousand dollars, I should say—­and if Bliss were alive I would stay with the concern and get it all back; for on each new book I would require a portion of that back pay; but as it is (this in the very strictest confidence,) I shall probably go to a new publisher 6 or 8 months hence, for I am afraid Frank, with his poor health, will lack push and drive.

Out of the suspicions you bred in me years ago, has grown this result, —­to wit, that I shall within the twelvemonth get $40,000 out of this “Tramp” instead Of $20,000.  Twenty thousand dollars, after taxes and other expenses are stripped away, is worth to the investor about $75 a month—­so I shall tell Mr. Perkins to make your check that amount per month, hereafter, while our income is able to afford it.  This ends the loan business; and hereafter you can reflect that you are living not on borrowed money but on money which you have squarely earned, and which has no taint or savor of charity about it—­and you can also reflect that the money you have been receiving of me all these years is interest charged against the heavy bill which the next publisher will have to stand who gets a book of mine.

Jean got the stockings and is much obliged; Mollie wants to know whom she most resembles, but I can’t tell; she has blue eyes and brown hair, and three chins, and is very fat and happy; and at one time or another she has resembled all the different Clemenses and Langdons, in turn, that have ever lived.

Livy is too much beaten out with the baby, nights, to write, these times; and I don’t know of anything urgent to say, except that a basket full of letters has accumulated in the 7 days that I have been whooping and cursing over a cold in the head—­and I must attack the pile this very minute. 
                         With love from us
                                        Y aff
                                             Sam
$25 enclosed.