Includes index.

Curing a cold -- Aurelia's unfortunate young man -- Information for the million -- Killing of Julius Caesar "Localized" -- Lucretia Smith's soldier -- A touching story of George Washington's boyhood -- Advice to little girls -- "After" Jenkins -- Answers to correspondents -- Mr. Bloke's Item -- From California almanac -- Scriptural panoramist -- Among the spirits -- Brief biographical sketch of George Washington -- A complaint about correspondents -- Concerning chambermaids -- Honored as a curiosity -- An inquiry about insurances -- Literature in the dry diggings -- Origin of illustrious men -- The facts concerning the recent resignation -- General Washington's negro body-servant -- Information wanted -- My late senatorial secretaryship -- Playbill -- Back from "Yurrup" -- The Benton house -- A fine old man -- Guying the guides -- Mental photographs -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's farm -- The Turkish bath -- The case of George Fisher -- An entertaining article -- History repeats itself -- John Chinaman in New York -- Judge's "Spirited Woman" -- The late Benjamin Franklin -- Map of Paris -- My bloody massacre -- Mysterious visit -- Note on "The Petrified man" -- Post-mortem poetry -- Riley ; newspaper correspondent -- Running for Governor -- To raise poultry -- The undertaker's chat -- The widow's protest -- Wit inspirations of "Two-year-olds" -- About barbers -- A burlesque biography.

The danger of lying in bed -- A fashion item -- First interview with Artemus Ward -- My first literary venture -- A new Beecher Church -- Portrait of King William III -- "Blanketing" the Admiral -- A deception -- A genuine Mexican Plug -- The great landslide case -- How the author was sold in Newark -- A hundred and ten tin whistles -- Lionizing murderers -- Markiss, King of Liars -- Mr. Arkansas -- Nevada Nabobs -- What Hank said to Horace Greeley.

When the buffalo climbed a tree -- A curious pleasure excursion -- Rogers -- After-dinner speech -- A couple of poems by Twain and Moore -- An encounter with an interviewer -- Johnny Greer -- Jumping frog -- The office bore -- "Party cries" in Ireland -- Petition concerning copyright -- The Siamese twins -- Speech at the Scottish banquet -- Speech on accident insurance -- The facts concerning the recent carnival of crime in Connecticut -- Letter read at dinner -- Punch, brothers, punch -- Some rambling notes of an idle excursion -- Speech on the weather -- The Whittier birthday speech.

About magnanimous-incident literature -- O'Shah -- The great revolution in Pitcairn -- Speech on the babies -- American in Europe -- An American party -- Ascending the Riffelberg -- The awful German language -- The great French duel -- The King's encore -- The laborious ant -- My long crawl in the dark -- Nicodemus Dodge -- Skeleton for a Black Forest novel -- A telephonic conversation -- Two works of art -- Why Germans wear spectacles -- Young Cholley Adams -- Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims -- Concerning the American language -- Legend of Sagenfeld in Germany -- On the decay of the art of lying -- Paris notes.

The art of inhumation -- Keelboat talk and manners -- Introduction to "The new guide of the conversation in Portuguese and English" -- A petition to the Queen of England -- A majestic literary fossil -- About all kinds of ships -- A cure for the blues -- The enemy conquered ; or love triumphant -- Traveling with a Reformer -- Private history of the "Jumping Frog" story -- Fenimore Cooper's literary offenses -- A hell of a hotel at Maryborough -- The Indian crow -- At the appetite cure -- The Austrian Edison keeping school again -- From "London Times" of 1904 -- My first lie, and how I got out of it -- My boyhood dreams -- Amended obituaries -- Does the race of man love a Lord? -- Instructions in art -- Italian with grammar -- Italian without a master -- Petrified man -- Dutch Nick massacre.