Where have you gone, Guy de Maupassant?

Recognize this guy? His name is Samuel Clemens, but you probably know him better as Mark Twain. A writer and humorist, Twain is well-known for creating novels about Tom Sawyer and his buddy Huckleberry Finn. It's less well known that he wrote short stories. Some estimates say nearly 50 of them.

Is this important? For the purposes of this blog, yes.  Read on and see why.

In the course of my