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 was half finished those three were taking things almost entirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private venture of their own—­a tale which they had nothing at all to do with, by rights.

When the book was finished and I came to look around to see what had become of the team I had originally started out with—­Aunt Patsy Cooper, Aunt Betsy Hale, the two boys, and Rowena the light-weight heroine—­they were nowhere to be seen; they had disappeared from the story some time or other.  I hunted about and found them found them stranded, idle, forgotten, and permanently useless.  It was very awkward.  It was awkward all around; but more particularly in the case of Rowena, because there was a love-match on, between her and one of the twins that constituted the freak, and I had worked it up to a blistering heat and thrown in a quite dramatic love-quarrel, wherein Rowena scathingly denounced her betrothed for getting drunk, and scoffed at his explanation of how it had happened, and wouldn’t listen to it, and had driven him from her in the usual “forever” way; and now here she sat crying and broken-hearted; for she had found that he had spoken only the truth; that it was not he, but the other half of the freak, that had drunk the liquor that made him drunk; that her half was a prohibitionist and had never drunk a drop in his life, and, although tight as a brick three days in the week, was wholly innocent of blame; and indeed, when sober, was constantly doing all he could to reform his brother, the other half, who never got any satisfaction out of drinking, anyway, because liquor never affected him.  Yes, here she was, stranded with that deep injustice of hers torturing her poor torn heart.