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.