GREEN FROGS AND A BOTTLE OF BEER 31 
poon ran out of the barrel so fast that the side of the 
boat began to smoke and father had to pour water on 
it to keep the boat from burning up.’ ‘Oh, come off the 
perch,’ said Blue Eyes. ‘The rope couldn’t smoke nor 
could it possibly set the boat on fire.—Goodness,”’ said 
Jimmy to me, ‘‘I had to laugh then, because Blue Eyes 
would not believe the only true thing I had said so far.”’ 
“““Tt smoked all right,’ I told him, ‘but pretty soon 
the rope stopped running out and in about two minutes 
the whale shot up almost his full length out of the water, 
and if there was one, there were five hundred frogs came 
Swarming out of his mouth, great big green ones that 
would weigh two pounds apiece.’ 
‘“““Tf there was one,’ said Blue Eyes softly, looking 
at me with a grin. 
‘“““Oh, well,’ says I, and I had to say something to 
save my face, ‘I’ll bet I’ve told that yarn five hundred 
times and no one ever caught on before. They always 
begin to argue about those frogs and how in Sam Hill 
they ever got ’way out in the ocean off Alaska. Most of 
them finally conclude the whale must have gone in 
somewhere near shore and had a frog-feed. Anyway, 
I never did like a story without any foundation. Give 
me a story or a building with a good foundation and 
then you’ve got something to goon. It always makes 
me sore when those condemned hogs of mine get under 
the house in the night and keep me awake scratching 
their backs on the floor beams.’ 
“““Well,’ said Blue Eyes to me kinder soft, ‘your story 
reminds me of something that happened last winter. 
I live in St. Louis and there, you know, all the houses 
are built in blocks and touch each other. <A good look- 
ing young chap had lived in the house next mine for 
over a year, but I didn’t know his name.’—Of course 
