THE JUMPING FROa. 29 



humorists Americans dissected by iiim, and hence the complaint I am making. 

 This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, where 

 they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start into a sen- 

 tence you never know- whether you are going to come out alive or not). It is a 

 very good article, and the writer says all manner of kind and complimentary 

 things about me — for which I am sure I thank him with all my heart ; but then 

 why should he go and spoil all his praise by one unlucky experiment.' What 

 I refer to is this: he says my Jumping Frog is a funny story, but still he can't 

 see why it should ever really convulse anyone with laughter — and straightway 

 proceeds to translate it into French in order to prove to his nation that there is 

 nothing so very extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint 

 originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all up; it is 

 no more like the Jumping Frog when he gets through with it than I am like a 

 meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof; wherefore I print 

 the French version, that all may see that I do not speak falsely ; furthermore, in 

 order that even the unlettered may know my injury and give me their compas- 

 sion, I have been at infinite pains and trouble to re-translate this French version 

 back into English ; and to tell the truth I have well nigh worn myself out at it, 

 having scarcely rested from my work during five days and nights. I cannot 

 speak the French language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I 

 being self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English 

 version of the Jumping Frog, and then read the French or my re-translation, 

 and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled the grammar. I think it 

 is the worst I ever saw ; and yet the French are called a polished nation. If I 

 had a boy that put sentences together as they do, I would polish him to some 

 purpose. Without further introduction, the Jumping Frog, as I originally 

 wrote it, was as follows — [after it will be found the French version, and after 

 the latter my re-translation from the French] : 



THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS* COUNTY. 

 In compliance with tte 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 



* Pronounced Cal-e-no-ras, 



