Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/162

 all over the West. The firm seemed to have a good standing, and certainly had all the requisite printing facilities. When the book was about half done, however, the firm failed, and all their assets were seized upon by their creditors, including the plates for my book. A complicated contention over the assets ensued. In spite of my unceasing efforts, I succeeded only in the latter part of May in getting control of my manuscript and the finished plates, and it was late in June before the book was ready. My agreement with the subscribers and advertisers had been to deliver it on May 1. The spring emigration to Pike's Peak, for which the book was intended, being over, they refused to accept it. The upshot of it all was, that barely enough copies were sold to cover the cost of the first edition of twenty-five hundred. In other words, instead of the expected financial success, the undertaking proved a failure, leaving me without any compensation for the months of time and trouble I had devoted to it, and, besides, very much reducing my limited means. I did not get over the pang of that disappointment for a long time. Instead of finding myself an independent capitalist, able to do thereafter only such literary work as suited me—a blissful state to which I had confidently looked forward—I was again obliged to seek regular journalistic employment. Fortunately for me, we were in a “Presidential year,” the exciting forerunner of the dreadful crisis through which the country was to pass during the following years. I had been asked by the Cincinnati Commercial to attend the memorable Republican National Convention that met at Chicago on May 16, on its behalf, and gladly obeyed the summons. What I saw and heard on that great occasion will always form one of my most cherished and stirring reminiscences. I have attended a number of national gatherings of the great political parties since, but none that even remotely compared with the attendance at the Chicago convention in point of intelligence, character, earnestness, and enthusiasm. It contained the