(2 of 2)
"Dear Charley—Send an expert to examine the [Paige Type-Setting Machine]. ... I reckon it will take about a hundred thousand machines to supply the world, & I judge the world has got to buy them—it can't well be helped"; "Rush that brass [stamp]. Don't let a moment be lost. . . . TELEGRAPH ME A RESULT OF SOME SORT IN 24 HOURS";
"Throw brass aside for a while, & try copper. . . . After you have tried copper, then we will try brass again. ... If we succeed, brass stamps will never be used any more in the Christian world"; "Look into that Bierstadt Artotype business, & see what figure a body can buy into at"; "I wish to God I could get a good pen. I'll be damned if I think any are made." . . . "Dear Charley—Look here, have the Am. Pub. Co. swindled me out of only $2,000? I thought it was five"; "I have this idea: to paint the white marble (which immediately surrounds [my] hall fireplace) the same strong red of the hall walls, & then cover it with Mr. De Forest's thin arabesque-cut brass sheets. . . . Ask . . . if that can be done"; "Go to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Hudson R.R. and see if they will rent me a special sleeping car. . . . Go directly to the President of the Company. . . . Hurry!"; "No provision is made for a wooden barrack for the soldiers who guard General Grant's tomb. I wonder what [it] would cost.. . . Could you ask?"
"Dear Charley—I have thought out an idea for a presentation copy [of General Grant's Memoirs*] from the publishers to the Pope. . . . Bind it in pure solid gold lids (hinged at the back). The gold . . . would cost $500. . . . When placed on exhibition in Tiffany's window, all New York and all strangers visiting New York would flock to see [the book] . . . descriptions of it would appear in all languages & in all newspapers in the world. . . . Find out ... if His Holiness will accept. ... I think the idea is sound.. . . P.S. No, the gold would cost nearer $3,000, instead of $500. That is all the better."
After years of this, Manager Webster suffered a nervous breakdown and retired to the quiet countryside, where he spent his few remaining years carving ship models and looking at the stars through a telescope. Pope Leo XIII created him a Knight of the Order of Pius for publishing his biography. In later years, Uncle Sam once said acidly: "If the Pope made Webster a knight, he ought to have made him an archangel."
*Published by the Mark Twain-Webster house, Charles L. Webster & Co.