sometimes two, when she was well started, and refall upon his feet like a cat.  He him had accomplished in the art of to gobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually —­so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost.  Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was the education, but with the education she could do nearly all—­and I him believe.  Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon this plank—­Daniel Webster was the name of the frog—­and to him sing, “Some flies, Daniel, some fifes!”—­in a flash of the eye Daniel 30 had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew at the earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with his behind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority.  Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was.  And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you can know.  To jump plain-this was his strong.  When he himself agitated for that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him remained a red.  It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his frog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had all seen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to another frog.  Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried bytimes to the village for some bet.

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and him said: 

“What is this that you have them shut up there within?”

Smiley said, with an air indifferent: 

“That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is nothing of such, it not is but a frog.”

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side and from the other, then he said: 

“Tiens! in effect!—­At what is she good?”

“My God!” respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, “she is good for one thing, to my notice (A mon avis), she can better in jumping (elle pent battre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras.”

The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate: 

“Eh bien!  I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog.” (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu’aucune grenouille.) [If that isn’t grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge.—­M.  T.]

“Possible that you not it saw not,” said Smiley, “possible that you—­you comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but an amateur.  Of all manner (De toute maniere) I bet forty dollars that she better in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras.”

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad: