s nothing of better than
another.'

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel,
until that which at last he said:

'I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused.
Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed.'

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:

'The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds.'

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le
malheureux, etc.). When Smiley recognised how it was, he was like mad.
He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he
not him caught never.

It may be that there are people who can translate better than I can, but
I am not acquainted with them.

So ends the private and public history of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County, an incident which has this unique feature about it--that it is
both old and new, a 'chestnut' and not a 'chestnut;' for it was original
when it happened two thousand years ago, and was again original when it
happened in California in our own time.

P.S.

London, July, 1900.--Twice, recently, I have been asked this question:

'Have you seen the Greek version of the "Jumping Frog"?'

And twice I have answered--'No.'

'Has Professor Van Dyke seen it?'

'I suppose so.'

'Then you supposition is at fault.'

'Why?'

'Because there isn't any such version.'

'Do you mean to intimate that the tale is modern, and not borrowed from
some ancient Greek book.'

'Yes. It is not permissible for any but the very young and innocent to
be so easily beguiled as you and Van Dyke have been.'

'Do you mean that we have fallen a prey to our ignorance and
simplicity?'

'Yes. Is Van Dyke a Greek scholar?'

'I believe so.'

'Then he knew where to find the ancient Greek version if one existed.
Why didn't he look? Why did he jump to conclusions?'

'I don't know. And was it worth the trouble, anyway?'

As it turns out, now, it was not claimed that the story had been
translated from the Greek. It had its place among other uncredited
stories, and was there to be turned into Greek by students of that
language. 'Greek Prose Composition'--that title is what made the
confusion. It seemed to mean that the originals were Greek. It was not
well chosen, for it was pretty sure to mislead.

Thus vanishes the Greek Frog, and I am sorry: for he loomed fine and
grand across the sweep of the ages, and I took a great pride