Phrase origin tale: waiting for the other shoe to drop (1904 June 30)

[Garson O'Toole]

A Reuters article dated August 24, 2011 reported the resignation of Steve Jobs:

"It's really sad," the CEO told Reuters. "No one is looking at this as
a business thing, but as a human thing. No one thinks that Steve is
just stepping aside because he just doesn't want to be CEO of Apple
anymore."
"It feels like another shoe is going to drop."

This article motivated me to examine the expression "waiting for the
other shoe to drop." It is covered at Michael Quinion's World Wide
Words here:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wai1.htm

Barry Popik recorded his discoveries about the phrase here:
http://goo.gl/qqHUF
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/waiting_for_the_other_shoe_to_drop/

ADS list participant Sam Clements found the earliest relevant cite
dated April 16, 1905, and he sent it to the list in 2005. The cite
refers to an origin story for the phrase, but it does not recount it.
It also assigns the origin tale to Mark Twain, but I do not think that
any supporting evidence for Twain's connection to the story has yet
emerged. He did live to 1910. Here is a link into the archive:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;W8RePw;200501140058410500B

Barry Popik gives a citation for an origin story dated August 11, 1905.

Here is a version of the tale in 1904. It is reprinted from the
Indianapolis News.

Cite: 1904 June 30, The Implement Age, Advertisement Department,
Nervous Man in Next Room, Page 28, Column 2, Implement Age Co.,
Philadelphia-Chicago. (Google Books full view)

NERVOUS MAN IN NEXT ROOM.

A traveling man stopped at a hotel at Monticello. The proprietor told
him he could not lodge him, not a room in the house. The traveling man
protested. He must have a room. Finally the proprietor told him there
was a room, a little room separated by a thin partition from a nervous
man, a man who had lived in the house for ten years.

"He is so nervous," said the landlord, "I don't dare put anyone in
that room. The least noise might give him a nervous spell that would
endanger his life."

"Oh, give me a room," said the traveler, "I'll be so quiet he'll not
know I'm there."

Well, the room was given the traveler. He slipped in noiselessly and
began to disrobe. He took off one article of clothing after another as
quietly as a burglar. At last he came to his shoes. He unlaced a shoe,
and then, man-like, dropped it.

The shoe fell to the floor with a great noise. The offending traveler,
horrified at what he had done, waited to hear from the nervous man.
Not a sound. He took off the second shoe and placed it noiselessly
upon the floor. Then, in absolute silence, he finished undressing and
crawled between the sheets.

Half an hour went by. He had dropped into a doze, when there came a
tremendous knocking on the partition.

The traveler sat up in bed trembling and dismayed. "Wha-wha-what's the
matter?" he asked. Then came the voice of the nervous man:

"Blame you! Drop that other shoe!" - Indianapolis News


Here is the punch line of another version of the traveler and the
nervous man story published in 1904.

Cite: 1904 August 13, Los Angeles Times, The Congress Convention:
Seventh District Delegates Carry Out Slate, Page 6, Los Angeles,
California. (ProQuest)

'Why,' came the feeble reply, 'I'm a sick man; I am a nervous wreck,
and I can't go to sleep until you take off that other shoe.'

Garson

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