I've read a lot of Mark Twain, and this passage from his earliest book is as FUNNY as anything he ever wrote.

He wrote passages that were EQUALLY funny, but this is as good as anything Twain wrote in the way of comical prose.

This is called "Our Guide in Genoa" on the Victor disc that made this available to listeners in the World War I year (Twain had died several years earlier).

From Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad--that means Samuel L. Clemens is the author

Reader is William Sterling Battis

Victor 35563

1916

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an
American party, for Americans feel so much in
sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus.

Our guide there fidgeted about as if he
had swallowed a spring mattress.

“Ah, come wis me, genteelmen!--come! I show you
ze letter, ze letter written by Christopher Colombo!
He write it himself!--he write it in his own hand!”

A stained and aged document was spread before us.

“What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! The
handwriting of Christopher Colombo!--he write it himself!”

"Now, ah, what did you say was the name
of the party what writ this?"

“Christopher Colombo, great Christopher Colombo!”

“Ah, did he write it himself--or how?”

“Oh, yea, he write it himself! Christopher Colombo!
His own handwriting, written by himself!”

“Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen
years old what could write better than that."

"But this is the great Christo..."

"I don't care who it is. It's the worst writing I ever
saw. Now you musn't think you can impose on us
because we're strangers. We're not fools by a good
deal. If you got any specimen of penmanship of
real merit, you trot it out! If you haven't, drive off!"

"Ah, genteelmen, come with me! I show you
beautiful, O, magnificent bust of Christopher
Colombo! -- splendid, grand, magnificent!
Beautiful bust and beautiful pedestal!"

"What do you think of this?"

"Now, what did you say this gentleman's name was?"

"Christopher Colombo! Ze great, ze great Colombo!"

"Christopher Colombo. Well, what did he do?"

"He discover America!"

"Discover America? No, sir. That statement won't wash. Why, we
are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it.
Christopher Colombo, eh? Well, that's a pleasant name. Is he dead?"

"Oh, corpo di Baccho! -- three hundred year!"

"What did he die of?"

"I do not know! I can not tell."

"Small-pox, think?"

"I do not know, genteelmen! I do not know what he die of."

"Measles, likely?"

"Maybe -- maybe -- I do not know. I think he die of something."

"Parents living?"

"Im-poseeeble!"

"Now -- which is the bust and which is the pedestal?"

"Ah, Santa Maria! Zis ze bust, and zis ze pedestal!"

"Oh, I see, I see -- happy combination -- very happy combination.
Is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?"

NOW THE MUMMY:

"What did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?"