Twain Twist: “Better to keep your mouth...

Twain Twist: “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.” “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” “When I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes away.” Quotes from Mark Twain, right? After years of poring over dusty records, scholars at the Mark Twain Papers at UC Berkeley can’t find that Twain actually wrote or spoke these and similar sayings. A Berkeley history professor said others may have attributed the quips to Twain to give them credibility.

* Pay Dirt: Who would be crazy enough to pay $8.95 for a jar containing 2 1/2 ounces of brown dirt? Oh, you’ve never met a Baltimore Orioles baseball fan? Kenneth J. Goldberg and Alan N. Terner are bottling some of the 400 pounds of excess infield dirt the Orioles dispose of daily from soon-to-be-closed Memorial Stadium. One hitch: They were prohibited from selling the sod at the stadium for fear some fans might toss it at players.

* Rush Home: Queen Beatrix returned from her summer home in northern Italy on Monday with a broken leg, the Netherlands government spokesman said. The 53-year-old queen tripped and fractured her fibula during a visit to the Italian Alps. No other details were disclosed. The queen had returned to Holland several times during the monthlong vacation to see her husband, Claus, who was hospitalized with depression July 1.

* Revealing: It was the hit of the party--an album with hundreds of pictures of Tampa, Fla., naked women and lovers in action, all allegedly made from film developed at the local drugstore. But Wendy Ellingson’s boyfriend saw pictures he took of her in the album and she sued. A spokesman for the drugstore said the company was investigating the incident.