The Best American Humorous Short Stories

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The successful Inmate did as he was told, but in a very rough way, pushing against two or
three of the Class.
"How is this?" said the Patriarch.
"You told me to go up jostlin'," he replied.
The old gentlemen who had been shoved about enjoyed the pun too much to be angry.
Presently the Patriarch asked again:
"Why was M. Berger authorized to go to the dances given to the Prince?"
The Class had to give up this, and he answered it himself:
"Because every one of his carroms was a tick-it to the ball."
"Who collects the money to defray the expenses of the last campaign in Italy?" asked the
Patriarch.
Here again the Class failed.
"The war-cloud's rolling Dun," he answered.
"And what is mulled wine made with?"
Three or four voices exclaimed at once:
"Sizzle-y Madeira!"
Here a servant entered, and said, "Luncheon-time." The old gentlemen, who have
excellent appetites, dispersed at once, one of them politely asking us if we would not stop
and have a bit of bread and a little mite of cheese.
"There is one thing I have forgotten to show you," said the Superintendent, "the cell for
the confinement of violent and unmanageable Punsters."
We were very curious to see it, particularly with reference to the alleged absence of every
object upon which a play of words could possibly be made.
The Superintendent led us up some dark stairs to a corridor, then along a narrow passage,
then down a broad flight of steps into another passageway, and opened a large door
which looked out on the main entrance.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"We have not seen the cell for the confinement of 'violent and unmanageable' Punsters,"
we both exclaimed.
"This is the sell!" he exclaimed, pointing to the outside prospect.
My friend, the Director, looked me in the face so good-naturedly that I had to laugh.
"We like to humor the Inmates," he said. "It has a bad effect, we find, on their health and
spirits to disappoint them of their little pleasantries. Some of the jests to which we have
listened are not new to me, though I dare say you may not have heard them often before.
The same thing happens in general society, with this additional disadvantage, that there is
no punishment provided for 'violent and unmanageable' Punsters, as in our Institution."
We made our bow to the Superintendent and walked to the place where our carriage was
waiting for us. On our way, an exceedingly decrepit old man moved slowly toward us,
with a perfectly blank look on his face, but still appearing as if he wished to speak.
"Look!" said the Director--"that is our Centenarian."
The ancient man crawled toward us, cocked one eye, with which he seemed to see a little,
up at us, and said:
"Sarvant, young Gentlemen. Why is a--a--a--like a--a--a--? Give it up? Because it's a--a--
a--a--."
He smiled a pleasant smile, as if it were all plain enough.
"One hundred and seven last Christmas," said the Director. "Of late years he puts his
whole Conundrums in blank--but they please him just as well."
We took our departure, much gratified and instructed by our visit, hoping to have some
future opportunity of inspecting the Records of this excellent Charity and making extracts
for the benefit of our Readers.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The Celebrated Jumping Frog
Of Calaveras County


By Mark Twain (1835-1910)


[From The Saturday Press, Nov. 18, 1865. Republished in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), by Mark Twain, all of whose works are published by Harper & Brothers]

[Dark Saint Alaick]

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; and 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 to death
with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless
to me. If that was the design, it succeeded.


I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the dilapidated
tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and baldheaded,
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 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.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then
sat 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 his 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. I
let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.


"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here once by the name of
Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or may be 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 warn't finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he
was the curiousest 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. Any
way that suited the other man would suit him--any way just so's he got a bet, he was
satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

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 setting 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 he was,
too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet
you how long it would take him to get to--to 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 the boys here has seen that
Smiley and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd 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 up and asked him 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 twoand-
a-half 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 cipher it down.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he warn'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 up on 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 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 just 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 sawed off in 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 see 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 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.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats and all of 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'lated to
educate 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 may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down
flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and
kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur 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 ag'in 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 more'n any frog
might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so
gifted. And 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 traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid
over any frog that ever they see.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him downtown
sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come
acrost him with his box, and says:
"What might be that you've got in the 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 give it back to
Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well," he says, "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 amature, 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 studied 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."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

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 his-self, 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 his 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 give 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's, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One--two--three--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.