A small clarification:

I checked the text of "Journalism in Tennessee" for what Twain called the
editor of a newspaper and it actually reads "crawling insect.... braying..."
which Twain changed from "crawling insect" to "jack-ass" so that it reads
"jack-ass... braying..." for his public reading. But the point about print
versus oral readings is the same.

Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX