story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and
interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and
annoyance. I could not offer the book for publication, for I was afraid
it would unseat the reader's reason. I did not know what was the matter
with it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories in one.
It took me months to make that discovery. I carried the manuscript back
and forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and read it and studied
over it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the difficulty lay. I had
no further trouble. I pulled one of the stories out by the roots, and
left the other one--a kind of literary Caesarean operation.

Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled
out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist
works. Won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him
how the jack-leg does it?

Originally the story was called "Those Extraordinary Twins." I meant to
make it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian "freak"
or "freaks" which was--or which were--on exhibition in our cities--a
combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a single body
and a single pair of legs--and I thought I would write an extravagantly
fantastic little story with this freak of nature for hero--or heroes
--a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies and two boys for the
minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and their doings, of
course. But the tale kept spreading along, and spreading along, and
other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more and more room
with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a stranger named
Pudd'nhead Wilson, and a woman named Roxana; and presently the doings of
these two pushed up into prominence a young fellow named Tom Driscoll,
whose proper place was away in the obscure background. Before the book