-git!' and him and the feller touched up the frogs from
behind, and the new frog hopped off lively; but Dan'l give a heave, and
hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he
couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, 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--so--at Dan'l,
and says again, very deliberate: 'Well,' he says, '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
throw'd 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 nape of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if
he don't weigh five pound!' 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 feeler, but he
never ketched him.

The resemblances are deliciously exact. There you have the wily Boeotain
and the wily Jim Smiley waiting--two thousand years apart--and waiting,
each equipped with his frog and 'laying' for the stranger. A contest
is proposed--for money. The Athenian would take a chance 'if the other
would fetch him a frog'; the Yankee says: 'I'm only a stranger here, and
I ain't got a frog; but if I had a frog I'd bet you.' The wily Boeotian
and the wily Californian, with that vast gulf of two thousand years
between, retire eagerly and go frogging in the marsh; the Athenian
and the Yankee remain behind and work a best advantage, the one with
pebbles, the other with shot. Presently the contest began. In the one
case 'they pinched the Boeotian frog'; in the other, 'him and the feller
touched up the frogs from behind.' The Boeotian frog 'gathered himself
for a leap' (you can just see him!), but 'could not move his body in
the least'; the Californian frog 'give a heave, but it warn't no use--he
couldn't budge.' In both the ancient and the modern cases the strangers
departed with the money. The Boeotian and the Californian wonder what is
the matter with their frogs; they lift