Peter,

Your interest inspired me to dig out the complete typescript and take
another look at it. I received these excerpts from a friend, the late John
"Jack" McCabe, who was a well-known theater biographer [Cagney, Cohan,
Chaplin, and Laurel & Hardy (Jack was the founder of "The Sons of the
Desert," the L&H fan club).]

We saw Jack many times during our visits to Mackinac Island, and naturally,
Mark Twain's lecture at Grand Hotel and the Gabrilowitsches' summer cottage
were topics of conversation. Ossip and Clara gave a benefit performance at
Grand Hotel. We do not know if the local paper was kind to Clara's vocal
talents, but we suspect so.

Ossip and Clara often picnicked near British Landing, where Jack had long
resided. He gave us some helpful suggestions about an anecdote in _My
Husband Gabrilowitsch_. Clara tells how Ossip helped extinguish a fire and
rescued guests and furniture at the Island House Hotel (two doors down from
their cottage.) So far, no record of a fire has been found. The hotel is
still in operation, one of the oldest on the island. The Gabrilowitsches'
summer home, "The Anne Cottage," is still there as well.  It is not a
tar-paper
shack. "Cottage" is what they call expensive homes on Mackinac Island.
Another notable but more recent past-resident of the cottage is George
Steinbrenner.

I didn't quite know what to do with the typescript (until now). A few years
ago, I created a keepsake edition of the memoir pertaining to O.G. for Jack
and some friends. This morning, I adapted the text to a PDF file and have
posted it on the TwainWeb for anyone who is interested. I used the letter
Jack sent with the typescript as a foreword. It includes an O.G. story that
McLauchlin thought too risqué to put in his memoir. A 1970 article about
Orchestra Hall by McLauchlin, as well as additional stories about O.G. and
his sense of humor follow Jack's letter.

We recently established an easier to remember URL for the TwainWeb:

www.twainweb.net

Scroll down  and click on "Files of Interest to Twainians." The McLauchlin
memoir will be at the top of the page. Acrobat Reader (which is on most
computers or
available for free) is required to view the file.

Kevin B.