September 2 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss about securing agents in the Buffalo area for sales of Innocents Abroad. All sales were by subscription, with traveling agents advertising and soliciting the book [MTL 3: 327]. Sam sent a note of acknowledgement to Stephen C. Massett (1820-1898) another lecturer, who’s stage persona was “Jeems Pipes” [MTL 3: 328]. Massett was an English author who dabbled in acting and real estate before editing the Marysville Herald and contributing to The Pioneer and the Golden Era. He wrote an autobiographical account of early California theater entitled “Drifting About”; or What “Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville,” Saw-and-Did (1863).

From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:

·       Byron collars are in vogue again.

·       Sheridan is not married again yet.

·       Brigham Young has lost his family Bible, and is in trouble to find out how many children he has or what their names are.

·       The wonderful two-headed girl is still on exhibition in New England. She sings duets by herself. She has a great advantage over the rest of her sex, for she never has to stop talking to eat, and when she is not eating, she keeps both tongues going at once. She has a lover, and this lover is in a quandary, because at one and the same moment she accepted him with one mouth and rejected him with the other. He does not know which to believe. He wishes to sue for breach of promise, but this is a hopeless experiment, because only half of the girl is guilty of the breach. This girl has two heads, four arms, and four legs, but only one body, and she (or they) is (or are) seventeen years old. Now is she her own sister? Is she twins? Or, having but one body, (and consequently but one heart), is she strictly but one person? If the above named young man marries her will he be guilty of bigamy? This double girl has only one name, and passes for one girl—but when she talks back and forth at herself is she soliloquising? Does she expect to have one vote or two? Has she the same opinions as herself in all subjects, or does she differ sometimes? Would she feel insulted if she were to spit in her own face? Just at this point we feel compelled to drop this investigation, for it is rather too tangled for us [Reigstad 247-8].