For the next edition of The Yale Book of Quotations, I am researching the
history of the quotation, often attributed to Twain, about "never smoking
more than one cigar at a time."  Many newspapers quoted Twain saying this
in a speech upon his 70th birthday in 1905, but I find a couple of 1904
newspaper articles telling it as a joke without reference to Twain.  Is it
likely that Twain picked this up from an anonymous joke that had been
circulating, or that Twain on his 70th birthday was recycling a quip of
his that probably predated 1904?

Fred Shapiro
Yale Law School
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