NOTEBOOK

take considerable credit to himself for it. However, in
Ward's office he took credit to himself for granting
$2,000,000 to North, the inventor of the Justifier, when
(as he said) he hadn't need to grant him a cent unless
he chose; whereas, as / understand it, North took legal
steps against him before he yielded.

Clemens never seems to have been openly
violent with Paige. Once he wrote;

Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate
terms, and yet he knows, perfectly well, that if I had him
in a steel trap I would shut out all human succor and
watch that trap, until he died.

May 13. Saturday. Room 268 (?) Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Cast off at 10:15 A.M.; discharged pilot at 12:30. Only
half a trip of passengers.

Wednesday, May 24. Sailing along the Balearic Islands,
this forenoon. Due at Genoa tomorrow night. A perfectly
smooth voyage, but unspeakably tedious. I am older by
ten years than I was when I left New York. The fact is,
the voyage is too smooth.

It was not the smooth voyage that had aged
him; it was the gnawing uncertainty of his busi-
ness future. The publishing firm, now conducted
by a Mr. Hall, had undertaken to issue a large
set of books entitled Library of American Litera-
ture, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman and
to be sold by subscription. Agents were already
taking orders for it, but money for its manu-
facture was required faster than could be pro-
vided for by the initial payments received from
subscribers. Large sums of money were needed
and the notes at the bank were growing,

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