Yes, the Lex Falkenhayn was a great invention, and did what was claimed for it—­it got the government out of the frying-pan.

[1] That is, revolution.

[2] ’In that gracious bygone time when a mild and good-tempered spirit was the atmosphere of our House, when the manner of our speakers was studiously formal and academic, and the storms and explosions of to-day were wholly unknown,’ etc.—­Translation of the opening remark of a leading article in this morning’s ‘Neue Freie Presse,’ December 11.

[3] It is the 9th.—­M.T.

PRIVATE HISTORY OF THE ‘JUMPING FROG’ STORY

Five or six years ago a lady from Finland asked me to tell her a story in our Negro dialect, so that she could get an idea of what that variety of speech was like.  I told her one of Hopkinson Smith’s Negro stories, and gave her a copy of ‘Harper’s Monthly’ containing it.  She translated it for a Swedish newspaper, but by an oversight named me as the author of it instead of Smith.  I was very sorry for that, because I got a good lashing in the Swedish press, which would have fallen to his share but for that mistake; for it was shown that Boccaccio had told that very story, in his curt and meagre fashion, five hundred years before Smith took hold of it and made a good and tellable thing out of it.

I have always been sorry for Smith.  But my own turn has come now.  A few weeks ago Professor Van Dyke, of Princeton, asked this question: 

‘Do you know how old your “Jumping Frog” story is?’

And I answered: 

’Yes—­forty-five years.  The thing happened in Calaveras County, in the spring of 1849.’

’No; it happened earlier—­a couple of thousand years earlier; it is a Greek story.’

I was astonished—­and hurt.  I said: 

’I am willing to be a literary thief if it has been so ordained; I am even willing to be caught robbing the ancient dead alongside of Hopkinson Smith, for he is my friend and a good fellow, and I think would be as honest as any one if he could do it without occasioning remark; but I am not willing to antedate his crimes by fifteen hundred years.  I must ask you to knock off part of that.’

But the professor was not chaffing:  he was in earnest, and could not abate a century.  He offered to get the book and send it to me and the Cambridge text-book containing the English translation also.  I thought I would like the translation best, because Greek makes me tired.  January 30th he sent me the English version, and I will presently insert it in this article.  It is my ‘Jumping Frog’ tale in every essential.  It is not strung out as I have strung it out, but it is all there.

To me this is very curious and interesting.  Curious for several reasons.  For instance: