In his biography of Mark Twain, Paine documents a letter written, but not sent, by Twain to the Hartford, Connecticut Post, concerning this matter:
I entirely rewrote the play three separate and distinct times. I had expected to use little of his language and but little of his plot. I do not think there are now twenty sentences of Mr. Densmore's in the play, but I used so much of his plot that I wrote and told him that I should pay him about as much more as I had already paid him in case the play proved a success. I shall keep my word. (8)He did keep his word and sent Densmore an additional $200. In acknowledging the second check, Densmore wrote:
In this place permit me to thank you for the very handsome manner in which you have acted in this matter. ( 9)
All discussions of this controversy, that are raised elsewhere, leave a shadow hanging over the matter. It seems clear, by all contemporary accounts, that the source of the script was Twain—he had created Sellers and had fashioned him after his mother's cousin, James Lampton; he wrote the lines spoken in the play; and, although some of the plot was created by Densmore, he was, by his own admission, handsomely compensated for his contribution. Even if he wasn't compensated, should Densmore's manuscript ever be revealed, it would most likely consist, primarily, of dialogue lifted directly from the Sellers' portion of the Twain-Warner novel; which, in fact, was Twain's work to begin with. It should also be noted that many writers throughout history have drawn their plots from other sources—with or without compensation. Shakespeare drew most of his plots from already familiar stories and histories; but it is his treatment of those stories that makes his plays unmistakably "Shakespearian." Likewise, the essence of the play Colonel Sellers —its wit and its thought—is clearly, and undeniably Twain's. The proof is in the text.
