Just happened upon this little exchange on Garrison Keillor's Prairie
Home Companion website today. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/
It's some kind of contribution to Twainiana, I suppose.  (Or at least
something to read while listening to the paint dry, David.)


MARK TWAIN'S VANDAL

Dear Mr. Keillor,
Kinky Friedman, the once gubernatorial candidate of Texas and
All-American Humorist, tells a story that he visited the home of Mark
Twain and went into the billiard room and asked if he could shoot a
few and was told that he couldn't because Garrison Keillor once broke
so hard that a few of the balls exploded. Any truth to this story?

Bill H. Aurora, CO

I'm afraid it's true. We did a live broadcast from Mark Twain's
fabulous house in West Hartford and as part of the show, Roy Blount
and I went up to the third floor to shoot pool, the first actual game
of pool on live radio, to the best of my knowledge, and I broke and
the cue ball shattered. It just simply disintegrated. I doubt that it
was Mr. Twain's cue ball, but I don't know. It was old, that's for
sure. Of course, I apologized up one side and down the other, and the
curator said, "Oh, pshaw," or words to that effect, and now I see I
have become part of the legacy of the home, as a vandal and
despoiler. Oh well. It's a great old house and if you're up that way,
you should go see it. It's worth an hour or two. What I take away
from it is the bleak tragedy of his later years, starting with his
stubborn faith in the Paige typesetting machine, which led to his
bankruptcy, which led to the family's decamping for Europe, and then
the wretched death of his beloved daughter Susie of meningitis there
in the house. The young woman was alone, as I understand it,
hallucinating, wandering through empty rooms, and died in her
parents' bed where she had played as a child. It's hard to forget
that, once you've been in the house and heard the story.