The Theater: New Performer

Mark Twain Tonight! The stage is a faded daguerreotype, with a high, old-fashioned lectern, a desk with a topply mound of books and a cut-glass pitcher of water, a McKinley-era chair. Into this setting shuffles the spry, white-maned humorist in the white suit. Involuntary tremors ripple the stiffened fingers, the lower jaw nibbles spasmodically at wisps of tobacco-stained mustache, the shoulders twitch like marionettes in the invisible hands of time. But a pagan glint of eye suggests that this is a life less spent than well spent. Then the voice, cracked but not ruined, speaks, and the evening begins showering comic...

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