The proper naming of the typewriter had been quite as long and difficult a job as the evolution of the practical machine itself. Those who came before Sholes failed in this, quite as much as in their inventive efforts. Henry Mill did not even attempt to name his invention. Burt called his a "Typographer." Thurber called his first machine a "Patent Printer"; his second a "Mechanical Chirographer." Eddy, like Mill, made no effort to find a name. Jones called his invention a "Mechanical Typographer"; Beach called his an improvement in "Printing Instruments for the Blind"; Francis called his an improvement in "Printing Machines"; Harger called his an "Improved Mechanical Typographer"; DeMay also described his machine as an "Improved Mechanical Typographer or Printing Apparatus." Livermore, following the same lead, called his an "Improved Hand Printing Device or Mechanical Typographer." Peeler stated that he had invented a new and valuable "Machine for Writing and Printing." Hall did a little better when he described his invention as a "Machine for Writing with Type or Printing on Paper or Other Substance." Of all those who began before Sholes, the only one who showed any originality in picking a name was John Pratt with his "Pterotype," a word the meaning of which few people knew. It remained for Sholes himself, in his simple, direct way, to hit upon a name which no one has ever been able to improve upon. During the next few years, Weller tested out the machine that Sholes had sent him, and also later models, in connection with his work as shorthand reporter. The letters he received from Sholes during these years, addressed to "Charlie" and "Friend Charlie," every one of them typed by Sholes himself on his own machine, are striking word pictures of the writer in all his changing moods. In one we read, "The machine is done, and I want some more worlds to conquer. Life would be most flat, stale and unprofitable without something to invent." Again only two months later, "I have made another most important change in the machine," etc. Six months later, "I have now a machine which is an entirely new thing. I have been running this about two months, and in all that time it has not developed a single difficulty. In fact any such thing as trouble or bother has ceased to enter into the calculation." This sounds good and it sounds final, but listen to the last letter of the series, written two years later, on April 30, 1873. "The machine is no such thing as it was when you last saw it. In fact you would not recognize it." Sholes is always through and yet never through. But this time, as far as Sholes is concerned, the word was indeed final, for when this last letter was written the historic contract which placed the manufacture and further development of his machine in the hands of E. Remington & Sons, the famous gunmakers, had already been made.