tside prospect.
My friend, the Director, looked me in the face so good-naturedly that
I had to laugh.
"We like to humor the Inmates," he said. "It has a bad effect, we
find, on their health and spirits to disappoint them of their little
pleasantries. Some of the jests to which we have listened are not new
to me, though I dare say you may not have heard them often before. The
same thing happens in general society, with this additional
disadvantage, that there is no punishment provided for 'violent and
unmanageable' Punsters, as in our Institution."
We made our bow to the Superintendent and walked to the place where
our carriage was waiting for us. On our way, an exceedingly decrepit
old man moved slowly toward us, with a perfectly blank look on his
face, but still appearing as if he wished to speak.
"Look!" said the Director--"that is our Centenarian."
The ancient man crawled toward us, cocked one eye, with which he
seemed to see a little, up at us, and said:
"Sarvant, young Gentlemen. Why is a--a--a--like a--a--a--? Give it up?
Because it's a--a--a--a--."
He smiled a pleasant smile, as if it were all plain enough.
"One hundred and seven last Christmas," said the Director. "Of late
years he puts his whole Conundrums in blank--but they please him just
as well."
We took our departure, much gratified and instructed by our visit,
hoping to have some future opportunity of inspecting the Records of
this excellent Charity and making extracts for the benefit of our
Readers.
THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY
By Mark Twain (1835-1910)
[From _The Saturday Press_, Nov. 18, 1865. Republished in _The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches_
(1867), by Mark Twain, all of whose works are published by Harper &
Brothers.]
In compliance with the 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 W. Smiley, as requested to
do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that
_Leonidas W_. Smiley is a myth; and that my friend never knew such a
personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler
about him, it would remind him of his infamous _Jim Smiley_, and he
would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating
reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to
me. If that was the design, it succeeded.
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