August 16 Monday – Lydia Thompson’s Blonde Burlesque Troupe opened this evening at the Academy of Music in Buffalo. “A standing-room-only throng at the opera house waited three hours for the featured sparring exhibition between Ned ‘The Irish Giant’ O’Baldwin and Mike McCoole to finally begin” [Reigstad 35]. Did Clemens attend this performance of the Blondes? Perhaps. He must have seen it sometime because he published a story on the act in the Express on Feb. 28, 1870. Reigstad surmises: “He certainly would not have admitted seeing the scandalous Blondes to Olivia, to whom he had sworn strict, morally upright behavior in his remaining bachelor days. However, Twain’s Express story is filled with authoritative details about the Blondes’ stage routines, which suggests his firsthand knowledge” [291n2].