****

To Joe T. Goodman, in California:

DEAR JOE,--...... I wish you could get a day off and make those two or

three Californians buy those privileges, for I'm going to need money

before long.

I don't know where the Senator is; but out on the Coast I reckon.

I guess we've got a perfect machine at last. We never break a type, now,

and the new device for enabling the operator to touch the last letters

and justify the line simultaneously works, to a charm.

With love to you both,

MARK

The year closed gloomily enough. The type-setter seemed to be

perfected, but capital for its manufacture was not forthcoming.

The publishing business of Charles L. Webster & Co. was returning

little or no profit. Clemens's mother had died in Keokuk at the end

of October, and his wife's mother, in Elmira a month later. Mark

Twain, writing a short business letter to his publishing manager,

Fred J. Ball, closed it: "Merry Xmas to you!--and I wish to God I

could have one myself before I die."

784

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete