From
http://www.boondocksnet.com/twaintexts/letters/letter081002.html
Mark Twain's fondness for cats was well-known. In 1867 he published a story about a childhood friend's experience with cats in The Californian and the Sunday Mercury. In his autobiography, he recalled that his story of "Jim Wolfe and the Cats" was also copied by others. In later years he was photographed with cats at least several times. In Mark Twain: A Biography, Albert Bigelow Paine relates the story of a kitten that wandered into a photograph taken at Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1906:
One of the pictures amused him more than the others, because during the exposure a little kitten, unnoticed, had walked into it, and paused near his foot. He had never outgrown his love for cats, and he had rented this kitten and two others for the summer from a neighbor. He didn't wish to own them, he said, for then he would have to leave them behind uncared for, so he preferred to rent them and pay sufficiently to insure their subsequent care.
Cats were always present in his homes and at Quarry Farm, his frequent summer residence in Elmira, New York.
Redding, Connecticut,
Oct. 2, '08.
Dear Mrs. Patterson, -- The contents of your letter are very pleasant and very welcome, and I thank you for them, sincerely. If I can find a photograph of my "Tammany" and her kittens, I will enclose it in this. One of them likes to be crammed into a corner-pocket of the billiard table -- which he fits as snugly as does a finger in a glove and then he watches the game (and obstructs it) by the hour, and spoils many a shot by putting out his paw and changing the direction of a passing ball. Whenever a ball is in his arms, or so close to him that it cannot be played upon without risk of hurting him, the player is privileged to remove it to anyone of the 3 spots that chances to be vacant.
Ah, no, my lecturing days are over for good and all.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. Clemens