He had not come to America merely for entertainment.  He was at the New York office of the type-setter company, acquiring there what seemed to be good news, for he was assured that his interests were being taken care of, and that within a year at most his royalty returns would place him far beyond the fear of want.  He forwarded this good news to Italy, where it was sorely needed, for Mrs. Clemens found her courage not easy to sustain in his absence.  That he had made his letter glowing enough, we may gather from her answer.

It does not seem credible that we are really again to have money to spend.  I think I will jump around and spend money just for fun, and give a little away, if we really get some.  What should we do and how should we feel if we had no bright prospects before us, and yet how many people are situated in that way?

He decided to make another trip to Chicago to verify, with his own eyes, the manufacturing reports, and to see Paige, who would appear to have become more elusive than ever as to contracts, written and implied.  He took Hall with him, and wrote Orion to meet him at the Great Northern Hotel.  This would give him a chance to see Orion and would give Orion a chance to see the great Fair.  He was in Chicago eleven days, and in bed with a heavy cold almost the whole of that time.  Paige came to see him at his rooms, and, as always, was rich in prospects and promises; full of protestations that, whatever came, when the tide of millions rolled in, they would share and share alike.  The note-book says: 

    Paige shed even more tears than usual.  What a talker he is!  He
    could persuade a fish to come out and take a walk with him.  When he
    is present I always believe him; I can’t help it.

Clemens returned to New York as soon as he was able to travel.  Going down in the elevator a man stepped in from one of the floors swearing violently.  Clemens, leaning over to Hall, with his hand to his mouth, and in a whisper audible to every one, said: 

“Bishop of Chicago.”

The man, with a quick glance, recognized his fellow-passenger and subsided.

On May 13th Clemens took the Kaiser Wilhelm II. for Genoa.  He had accomplished little, but he was in better spirits as to the machine.  If only the strain of his publishing business had slackened even for a moment!  Night and day it was always with him.  Hall presently wrote that the condition of the money-market was “something beyond description.  You cannot get money on anything short of government bonds.”  The Mount Morris Bank would no longer handle their paper.  The Clemens household resorted to economies hitherto undreamed of.  Mrs. Clemens wrote to her sister that she really did not see sometimes where their next money would come from.  She reported that her husband got up in the night and walked the floor in his distress.

He wrote again to Hall, urging him to sell and get rid of the debts and responsibilities at whatever sacrifice: