Kent, could he be referring to the anecdote in A Tramp Abroad?  It plays 
satirically on the difference between "tail" and "tale," the narrator's 
obtuseness, and the stereotype of animalistic qualities to African Americans.

In Chapter XXV (page 247-254 in the Oxford MT edition), the narrator and Harris 
get into an argument some folks at another table--whether they're American, from 
which state, the age of the girl.  As the "dispute . . . waxed warm," the 
narrator declares he'll go ask.  The girl sees that he doesn't remember her, so 
she takes him along a garden path of fabricated reminiscences, one of which 
refers to "Darley":

"It was necessary to say something, --so I said,--

"I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thing."

"So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, although he had 
so many eccentricities.  You remember that then the weather was the least cold, 
he would try to come into the house."

I was rather afraid to proceed.  Evidently Darley was not a man,--he must be 
some other kind of animal,--possibly a dog, maybe an elephant.  However, tails 
are common to all animals, so I ventured to say,--

"And what a tail he had!"

"One!  He had a thousand!"

This was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I only said,--

"Yes, he was rather well fixed in the matter of tails."

"For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was."

It was getting pretty sultry for me.  I said to myself, "Is it possible she is 
going to stop there, and wait for me to speak?  If she does, the conversation is 
blocked.  A negro with a thousand tails is a topic which a person cannot talk 
upon fluently and instructively without more or less preparation  As to diving 
rashly into such a vast subject,--

But here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thought by saying,--

"Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply no end to them 
if anybody would listen . . . ." (250)

And the tale goes on, until she finally admits that she is pulling his tale in 
punishment for merely pretending to know here.  That's my best guess, anyway.  



Sharon



________________________________
From: R. Kent Rasmussen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, December 15, 2011 5:34:14 PM
Subject: Query about quote

As the editor of a collection of Mark Twain quotes, I feel a little =
foolish asking for help identifying a quote, but I'm stuck. I have most =
of Mark Twain's published writings on my computer and a vernerable but =
excellent text-search program (Lotus Magellan), but I'm absolutely =
unable to find an answer to my question.

A clergyman writing to Mark Twain in 1908 rattled off allusions to some =
of his favorite passages in Mark Twain's works and included this line: =
"the nigger with such a tail, `why he had a hundred!'"

I'm assuming he meant "tale" for "tail."  Nevertheless, every =
conceivable combination of key words I've searched has failed to turn up =
a likely hit. The clergyman's other textual allusions are accurate, but =
it's possible that he unintentionally phrased the mystery reference with =
words different from those in the text he was thinking of. However, even =
searches for words such as "story" (for "tale") and "thousand" and =
"million" (for "hundred") turned up no hits. My conclusion is that =
unless the clergyman was thinking of something written by a different =
author (yes, I've tried searching on google books), he was thinking of a =
very differently worded Mark Twain passage. If anyone can help me =
identify that passage, I'll be much obleeged. Keep in mind that any Mark =
Twain text the clergyman read had to have been published before =
September 1908 and probably appeared in a book or magazine reasonably =
accessible on the East Coast.