“I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it had one, I would embrace the bet.”

“Strong well!” respond Smiley; “nothing of more facility.  If you will hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j’irai vous chercher).”

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend).  He attended enough long times, reflecting all solely.  And figure you that he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon him fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he him puts by the earth.  Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp.  Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and said: 

“Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feet upon the same line, and I give the signal”—­then he added:  “One, two, three—­advance!”

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog new put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted the shoulders thus, like a Frenchman—­to what good? he not could budge, he is planted solid like a church he not advance no more than if one him had put at the anchor.

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of the turn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu).  The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of it himself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over the shoulder—­like that—­at the poor Daniel, in saying with his air deliberate—­(L’individu empoche l’argent, s’en va et en s’en allant est-ce qu’il ne donne pas un coup d pouce par-dessus l’epaule, comme ga, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air delibere): 

“Eh bien!  I no see not that that frog has nothin of better than another.”

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel, until that which at last he said: 

“I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused.  Is it that she had something?  One would believe that she is stuffed.”

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said: 

“The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:” 

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le malheureux, etc.).  When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad.  He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he not him caught never.

Such is the jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye.  I claim that I never put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and delirium tremens in my life.  And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to be abused and misrepresented like this?  When I say, “Well, I don’t see no pints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog,” is it kind, is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, “Eh bien!  I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog”?  I have no heart to write more.  I never felt so about anything before.