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 e-mail: [log in to unmask] http://quotationdictionary.com