My 7, 9, 4, 4 is a village in Europe.
My 7, 14, 5, 7 is a kind of dog.
My 11, 13, 13, 9, 2, 7, 2, 3, 6, 1, 13 is a peculiar kind of stuff.
My 2, 6, 12, 8, 9, 4 is the name of a great general of ancient times
(have spelt it to best of ability, though may have missed the bull's-eye
on a letter or two, but not enough to signify).
My 3, 11, 1, 9, 15, 2, 2, 6, 2, 9, 13, 2, 6, 15, 4, 11, 2, 3, 5, 1, 10,
4, 8 is the middle name of a Russian philosopher, up whose full cognomen
fame is slowly but surely climbing.
My 7, 11, 4, 12, 3, 1, 1, 9 is an obscure but very proper kind of bug.
My whole is--but perhaps a reasonable amount of diligence and ingenuity
will reveal that.
We take a just pride in offering the customary gold pen or cheap
sewing-machine for correct solutions of the above.
THE HAPPINESS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE
[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]
In my solitary and retired imagination (Neque enim cum porticus, aut me
lectulus accepit, desum mihi) I remember I am not alone, and therefore
forget not to contemplate Him and His Attributes who is ever with me,
especially those two mighty ones, His Wisdom and Eternity; with the one
I recreate, with the other I confound, my understanding; for who can
speak of Eternity without a soloecism, or think thereof without an
Extasie? Time we may comprehend; 'tis but five days elder than
ourselves, and hath the same Horoscope with the World; but to retire so
far back as to apprehend a beginning, to give such an infinite start
forwards as to conceive an end in an essence that we affirm hath neither
the one nor the other, it puts my Reason to _St. Paul's_ Sanctuary: my
Philosophy dares not say the angels can do it; God hath not made a
Creature that can comprehend Him; 'tis a privilege of His own nature....
[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]
Art is the perfection of Nature: were the World now as it was the sixth
day, there were yet a Chaos: Nature hath made one World, and Art
another. In brief, all things are artificial; for Nature is the Art of
God.
[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the
Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. Nature tells me I am the
Image of God, as well as Scripture: he that understands not thus much,
hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the
Alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am
as happy as any: _Ruat coelum, Fiat voluntas tua_, salveth all; so that
whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I
am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we
call Happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream,
and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more
apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of
anything that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses;
without this I were unhappy: for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever
whispering unto me, that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in
night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God
for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a
satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content
with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to
think we are all asleep in this World, and that the conceits of this
life are as near dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the
night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both,
and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we
are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the
body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of
sense, but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not
match the Fancies of our sleeps. At my Nativity, my Ascendant was the
watery sign of _Scorpius_; I was born in the Planetary hour of _Saturn_,
and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me. I am no way
facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in
one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the
jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof: were my memory as
faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my
dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my devotions: but our
grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted
understandings that they forget the story, and can only relate to our
awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed.
[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]
He is rich, who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so
poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. _He
that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord;_ there is more Rhetorick
in that one sentence, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if those
Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the same Emphasis as they
are delivered by the Author, we needed not those Volumes of
instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive only I
cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse,
or his Soul with my Prayers; those _scenical_ and accidental
_differences_ between us, cannot make me forget that common and untoucht
part of us both; there is under these _Cantoes_ and miserable outsides,
these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own,
whose Genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to
Salvation as our selves.
"PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE"
[Sidenote: _Hood_]
I'll tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:--
Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door:
So he call'd upon Lucy--'twas just ten o'clock--
Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.
Now, a handmaid, whatever her fingers be at,
Will run like a puss when she hears a _rat_-tat:
So Lucy ran up--and in two seconds more
Had questioned the stranger and answered the door.
The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe;
For the moment will come when such comers must go:
So she kissed him, and whispered--poor innocent thing!--
"The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring."
THE HAPPY DEAN
[Sidenote: _Dean Hole_]
My dear Hall,--I don't like the writing of this letter. I feel as I felt
in childhood when they were measuring out the castor-oil in a spoon; or
when, in boyhood, it was suggested "that kind Mr. Crackjaw should _just
look_ at my teeth."
But the gulp and the "scrawnsh" must come.
My Master, the Archbishop, wishes me to speak at the Annual Meeting of
the Church Defence Society in London, on the 9th of July, and as this is
his first invitation to duty since I became his Chaplain, I cannot plead
pleasure as an excuse.
Regarding the Fete des Roses at Larchwood, as the _most joyful holiday_
of my year, from my first entrance into that pleasant home until you
chaperon me to the Omnibus at the gate of the Show-ground, I need not
enlarge on my disappointment. The less said the better.
When Dido found Æneas did not come,
She mourned in silence, and was Di do dum.
Roses are improving here, but they will be very late. May you add to the
victories which your zeal and care have so well deserved. Shall you be
at Sheffield? If so, you might return with me and have a quiet day's
talk and ramble. With kindest regards and most obnoxious regrets, I
remain yours most sincerely,
* * * * *
When the Church Conference was held at Newcastle, Hole told a story of a
young curate who was preaching in a strange church from which the rector
was away. He preached a very short sermon, and in the vestry afterwards
the churchwarden remarked upon its shortness, and the curate told him
that a pup at his lodgings got into his room and ate half his sermon,
whereupon the churchwarden said: "I should be much obliged if you could
get our rector one of the breed." Reading this story, Mr. Boultbee wrote
to ask Hole if he could say what happened to the dog after eating the
sermon, and the reply was:
Dear Sir,--You will be pleased to hear that when the dog had inwardly
digested the sermon which he had torn, he turned over a new leaf. He had
been sullen and morose; he became "a very jolly dog." He had been
selfish and exclusive in his manger; he generously gave it up to an aged
poodle. He had been noisy and vulgar; he became a quiet, gentlemanly
dog; he never growled again; and when he was bitten he always requested
the cur who had torn his flesh to be so good, as a particular favour, to
bite him again. He has established a Reformatory in the Isle of Dogs for
perverse puppies, and an Infirmary for Mangy Mastiffs in Houndsditch.
He has won twenty-six medals from the Humane Society for rescuing
children who have fallen into the canal. He spends six days of the week
in conducting his brothers and sisters, who have lost their ways, to the
Dog's Home, and it is a most touching sight to see him leading the blind
to church from morning to night on Sundays.
[Sidenote: _Dean Hole_]
My dear Lord Bishop,--I have a strong suspicion that the inundation of
the Nave at Rochester was a knavish conspiracy of the Tee-totallers to
submerge the Cathedral during the absence of the Dean. The vergers have
had Water-on-the-Brain, but Messrs. Bishop and Sons from London have
assured Mr. Luard Selby that there is no organic disease.
I have regarded it as my duty, in anticipation of your lordship's visit
to North Wales on Wednesday next, to see that all due preparations are
made to receive you. I have been to ----, and found that the new chancel
is making satisfactory progress. The new altar frontal is beautiful, the
tea and bread and butter at the Rectory are excellent, the roses in the
garden are making extra efforts, the school-mistress is in good health,
the mountains are drawn up in saluting order, the mines are smoking
peacefully, there will be cold lamb at the luncheon, weather permitting,
and all frivolous persons will be banished to England, including yours
ever.
THE ANSWER OF LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE
[Sidenote: _Henry S. Leigh_]
The Lady Clara V. de V.
Presents her very best regards
To that misguided Alfred T.
(With one of her enamell'd cards).
Though uninclin'd to give offence,
The Lady Clara begs to hint
That Master Alfred's common sense
Deserts him utterly in print.
The Lady Clara can but say,
That always from the very first
She snubb'd in her decisive way
The hopes that silly Alfred nurs'd.
The fondest words that ever fell
From Lady Clara, when they met,
Were, "How d'ye do? I hope you're well!"
Or else, "The weather's very wet."
Her Ladyship needs no advice
How time and money should be spent,
And can't pursue at any price
The plan that Alfred T. has sent.
She does not in the least object
To let the "foolish yeoman" go,
But wishes--let him recollect--
That he should move to Jericho.
THE WOODCRAFT OF JONSON
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and
lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or
winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be
nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us,
trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a
courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it from him that
knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accident; but they
were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling
into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use
these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that
distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the
judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant
it not to me as a courtesy. I 'scaped pirates by being ship-wracked; was
the wrack a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is the
mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them
merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them;
he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they
would venture their industry the right way; but "The devil take all!"
quoth he that was choked i' the mill-dam, with his four last words in
his mouth.
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is
grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life as he would in his
journey. The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and
booted for it. The oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler,
the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is
worn is the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and
the ways he travels in.
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself
to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of
poverty. O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp is
the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches
outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little,
vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and
precious! We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the
earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is
hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near
us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep
and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring
them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous
things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary.
What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate
pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not
ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a
man may be brought into a præmunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O!
if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how
many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what
orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare;
what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how
short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness
than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of
fashions. But we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve
fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery.
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to
Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted
out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted out a thousand,"
which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this
but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their
friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for
I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much
as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an
excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he
flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be
stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit
was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too! Many times
he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in
the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong."
He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause"; and such-like,
which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There
was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]
Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And therefore the
reputation of honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be but by
living well. A good life is a main argument.
MOTHERHOOD
[Sidenote: _Calverley_]
She laid it where the sunbeams fall
Unscann'd upon the broken wall,
Without a tear, without a groan,
She laid it near a mighty stone
Which some rude swain had haply cast
Thither in sport, long ages past,
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,
And fenced with many a tall grass-blade,
And all about bid roses bloom
And violets shed their soft perfume.
There, in its cool and quiet bed,
She set her burden down and fled:
Nor flung, all eager to escape,
One glance upon the perfect shape
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair,
But motionless and soundless there.
No human eye had mark'd her pass
Across the linden-shadow'd grass
Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven:
Only the innocent birds of heaven--
The magpie, and the rook whose nest
Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest--
And the lithe cricket, and the hoar
And huge-limb'd hound that guards the door,
Look'd on when, as a summer wind
That, passing, leaves no trace behind,
All unapparell'd, barefoot all,
She ran to that old ruin'd wall,
To leave upon the chill dank earth
(For ah! she never knew its worth)
'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling,
And dews of night, that precious thing!
And there it might have lain forlorn
From morn till eve, from eve to morn:
But that, by some wild impulse led,
The mother, ere she turn'd and fled,
One moment stood erect and high;
Then pour'd into the silent sky
A cry so jubilant, so strange,
That Alice--as she strove to range
Her rebel ringlets at her glass--
Sprang up and gazed across the grass;
Shook back those curls so fair to see,
Clapp'd her soft hands in childish glee;
And shriek'd--her sweet face all aglow,
Her very limbs with rapture shaking--
"My hen has laid an egg, I know;
And only hear the noise she's making!"
THE JUMPING FROG
[Sidenote: _Mark Twain_]
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from
the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and
inquired after my friend's friend, _Leonidas W_. Smiley, as requested to
do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that
_Leonidas W_. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a
personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler
about him, it would remind him of his infamous _Jim_ Smiley, and he
would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal
reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me.
If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the
old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I
noticed that he was fat, and bald-headed, and had an expression of
winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He
roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of
his boyhood, named _Leonidas W_. Smiley--_Rev. Leonidas W_. Smiley, a
young minister of the gospel, who he had heard was at one time a
resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me
anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many
obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner, and blockaded me there with his
chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative
which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he
never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned
the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of
enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein
of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,
so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny
about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and
admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To
me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer
yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I
asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he
replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never
interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley in the winter
of '49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly,
somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I
remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp;
but, anyway, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything
that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the
other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Anyway that suited
the other man would suit him--anyway, just so's he got a bet, _he_ was
satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come
out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't
be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and
take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a
horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of
it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight,
he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if
there was two birds sitting on a fence he would bet you which one would
fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to
bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about
here--and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug
start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get
wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that
straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound
for and how long he was on the road. Lots of boys here has seen that
Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to
_him_--he would bet on _any_ thing--the dangest feller. Parson Walker's
wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they
warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked
how she was, and he said she was considerable better--thank the Lord
for his inf'nit mercy--and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of
Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says,
"Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."
Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,
but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster
than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so
slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or
something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred
yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of
the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and
straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the
air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up
m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing
and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand, just about a
neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.
And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he
wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a
chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a
different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of
a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the
furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him,
and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew
Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let
on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and
the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till
the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other
dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you
understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the
sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup,
till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because
they'd been saw'd off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone
along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch
for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how
the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared
surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no
more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a
look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was _his_ fault, for
putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which
was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and
laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and
would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in
him, and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't had no
opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog
could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he
hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that
last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.
Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and
tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you
couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched
a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate
him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back
yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_ learn him,
too? He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see
that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut--see him turn one
summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and came down
flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of
catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a
fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted
was education, and he could do most anything--and I believe him. Why,
I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster
was the name of the frog--and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and
quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n
the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of
mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as
indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any mor'n any frog
might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was,
for all he was so gifted. An' when it come to fair and square jumping on
a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any
animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong
suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up
money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his
frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been
everywhere, all said he laid over any frog that ever _they_ see.
Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to
fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a
stranger in the camp, he was--come across him with his box, and says:
"What might it be that you've got in that box?"
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, or it
might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog."
And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round
this way and that, and says, "H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's _he_ good for?"
"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for _one_
thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look,
and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't
see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe
you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you
ain't only a amateur, as it were. Anyways, I've got _my_ opinion, and
I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras
county."
And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well,
I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog,
I'd bet you."
And then Smiley says, "That's all right--that's all right--if you'll
hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller
took the box and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set
down to wait.
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then
he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and
filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to the
chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped
around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and
fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says:
"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws
just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says,
"One--two--three--jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs
from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and
hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use--he
couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no
more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised,
and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter
was, of course.
The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at
the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--this way--at
Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, _I_ don't see no p'ints
about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long
time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog
throwed off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with
him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by
the nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if
he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down, and he belched
out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was and he was the
maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he
never ketched him. And--
(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got
up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he
said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to
be gone a second."
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history
of the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me
much information concerning the _Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I
started away.
At the door I met the social Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me
and recommenced:
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no
tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"
"Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly, and,
bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.