Gold, HATCHING RUIN, p 42 quotes Kaplan quoting Paine saying Twain told him that such a merger had been proposed, but discounts Twain's statement saying that not a shred of evidence exists to support it. I have not checked Paine to verify Twain's claim. I doubt Merganthaler would have had any interest in a delicate typesetting machine when they already had a robust typecasting machine --a very different animal indeed. The Merganthaler technology was truly an advancement (linotype), and produced a set of slugs that could be used over and over, like printing plates, but more easily corrected or updated or replaced, and it was much economical in both labor and materials. The Paige machine just duplicated with machinery what a human typesetter could do, and did not solve any time/labor/expense issues. Even if the Paige machine had worked, Merganthaler still would have won out. But Paige didn't even come close to winning. By 1887, linotype had been used to produce THE TRIBUNE BOOK OF OPEN AIR SPORTS, a book of about 500pp. In the meantime Paige was tinkering with his machine which spent more time disassembled and being "perfected" than it did producing anything more than a few brief demonstrations. Kevin Mac Donnell Austin TX