To him and to his
fellow gold-miners there were just two things in the story that were
worth considering. One was the smartness of its hero, Jim Smiley, in
taking the stranger in with a loaded frog; and the other was Smiley's
deep knowledge of a frog's nature--for he knew (as the narrator asserted
and the listeners conceded) that a frog likes shot and is already ready
to eat it. Those men discussed those two points, and those only. They
were hearty in their admiration of them, and none of the party was aware
that a first-rate story had been told in a first-rate way, and that it
brimful of a quality whose presence they never suspected--humour.
Now, then, the interesting question is, did the frog episode happen in
Angel's Camp in the spring of '49, as told in my hearing that day in the
fall of 1865? I am perfectly sure that it did. I am also sure that its
duplicate happened in Boeotia a couple of thousand years ago. I think it
must be a case of history actually repeating itself, and not a case of a
good story floating down the ages and surviving because too good to be
allowed to perish.
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