AMERICAN HUMOUR.

Southland Times, Issue 898, 12 February 1868, Page 3

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

In an article bearing the above suggestive heading, the " Australiasian" has the following. One of the latest American humorists is one Mark Twain, who is not unworthy to be classed immediately after Artemus "Ward, and whosej fun partakes sometimes of a subtelty to which the other and stronger humorist was a stranger. Mark Twain hails from California, and his works have a distinct local coloring, which separates them from the Yankee and Western productions. He does not resort so much for his effects to spelling as Artemus Ward did, and is bold enough to rely upon plain English for the success of his entertainment. There is a peculiar vein of dry quaintness, j also, in his lucubrations which distinguishes them from his rivals, and perhaps he depends even more then they did upon a certain congeniality of mind on the part of the audience. As the best specimen of Mark Twain's powers is a ludicrous story of one Jim Smiley of Calaveras county, who has a passion for betting, and for training all kinds of odd creatures to serve his gambling purposes : — "He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him ; and so he never done nothing for three mouths but set in his back yard . and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut — see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flatfooted and all right, like a cat. He got him up so. in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly erery time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything — and I believe him. Why, I have seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor — Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog — and sing out, ' Plies, Dan'l flies !' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot a3 indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never seen a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was, so gifted. And when it come to a fair and square jump on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see, jumping on a dead level was his strong ruit, you understand ; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been every wheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see. " Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town and lay for abet. One. day a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was — came across him with his box, and says, — " ' What might it be that you've got in the box ?' " And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, ' It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it an't — it's only just a frog.' " And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, H'm — so it is. Well, what's he good for ?' " ' Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless,' he's good enough for owe thing, I should judge — he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.' "The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says very deliberate, " Well, I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.' " ' Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. ' Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ant only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.' " And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog ; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.' " And then Smiley saya, ' That's all right, that's all right— if you'll hold my

box a minit, I'll go and get you & frog.' And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait. " So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot — filled him pretty near up to his chin — and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he 'ketehed a frog, and fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says — " ' Now, if you're ready, set him along- 1 side of Dan'i, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, ' One — two — three, jump !' and | him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l gave a heave and hysted up his shoulders — so — like a Frenchman; but it want no use — he couldn't budge ; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was of course. " The feller took the money and started away j and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder — this way — at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberately, * Well, I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.' " Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, ' I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw 1 d off for — I wonder if there ant something the matter with him — he ,pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the nape of the neck, and lifted him up and says, ' "Why blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pound !' and turned him upeidedown, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man— he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him."