The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (75 page)

A further possibility is suggested in a newspaper letter
entitled "A Mystery," probably written in 1868 to "EDS.
HERALD" (clipping in MTP). Complaining of a
deadbeat "Double" who had been writing squibs and
borrowing money in his name, Mark Twain concludes:
"I am fading, still fading. Shortly, if my distress of mind
continues, there may be only four of us left. (That is a
joke, and it naturally takes the melancholy tint of my
own feelings. I will explain it: I am Twain, which is
two; my Double is Double-Twain, which is four more;
four and two are six; two from six leaves four. It is very
sad.)" Thus, in a punning non-mathematical sense, 44
might be Twain twice doubled.

None of these explanations, however, seems wholly adequate. On the basis of present evidence I conclude that
the number and name "44" indicate simply that "Satan's
original host have large families," as the author says in
his working notes for "Schoolhouse Hill."

RATHER THAN define each printing term as it occurs in the text, I have
assembled them here in a glossary. The definitions, often condensed,
derive mostly from Herbert Simon and Harry Carter, Printing Explained (Leicester, 1931). As early as 1886, Clemens used many of these
same terms in his speech, "The Compositor," delivered to a group of
printers on Franklin's birthday; Hartford Courant, 20 January 1886. As
late as 1909, in the essay "Is Shakespeare Dead?" Clemens would write:
"If a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say,
'Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposingstone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let
them jeff for takes and be quick about it,' I should recognize a mistake
or two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a
printer theoretically"; What Is Man?, pp. 336-337.