Mark Twain’s Greatest Downfall

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deals involves a patent that a friend had talked him into participating in. Twain lost a lot of money, but managed to continue with his financial dealings. In 1906, Twain wrote about his first deal who suckered him into a patent that would eventually cost him $42,000 in the long run.
After trying to work with patents over several occasions, Twain tried his luck with machinery. Like the other investment, he had to put out a lot of money. Twain discusses what occurred with the machinery:
Meantime, another old friend arrived with a wonderful invention.
It was an engine or a furnace or something of the kind which
would get out 99 per cent of all the stream that was in a
pound of coal. I went to Mr. Richards of the Colt Arms
Factory and told him about it. He seemed to be doubtful
about this machine and I asked him why. He said, because
the amount of stream concealed in a pound of coal was
known to a fraction and that my inventor was mistaken
about his 99 per cent. ...

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was great fortune
in store for it and wanted me to take some stock. I
declined. I said I didn’t want anything more to do with
wildcat speculation. Then he offered the stock to me at
twenty-five. I said I didn’t want it at any price. He
became eager-insisted that I take five hundred dollars’
worth. He said he would sell me as much as I wanted
for five hundred dollars-offered to let me gather it up
in my hands and measure it in a plug hat-said I could have
a whole hatful for five hundred dollars. But I was the
burnt child and I resisted all these temptations.
That young man couldn’t sell me any stock but he sold a
few hatfuls of it to an old dry-goods clerk ...

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