American Tales takes a musical journey with Mark Twain and Herman Melville in adaptations of their stories. The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton is a free adaptation of Twain's comic look at the telephone, a new invention at the time. Bartleby the Scrivener, one of Melville's stories, follows Bartleby, a cog in the machine of an 1840's law office who refuses to work one day, responding to every request with, "I would prefer not to."