The passage you found is better than a "best guess," Sharon. I regard it as a dead cert that it's the very passage Mark Twain's correspondent was thinking of. His wording is a little different, but it contains all the key elements of the TRAMP ABROAD passage. Moreover, I can appreciate why he singled it out as a favorite: When read in its entirety, the anecdote about uncertain identities is very funny. It was one of my father's favorite Mark Twain passages; he would laugh till tears came to his eyes when he told others about it. I'm getting old enough myself to appreciate it more every year. These days I often meet people who seem already to know me but whom I can't quite place. Thanks very much, Sharon. You've saved me the embarrassment of sending my book to press with a simple research question unanswered. You don't happen to read Pitman shorthand, do you? Kent