Wocky-bocky again rubbed his tomahawk across my face, and said: "Wink-ho-loo-boo!" Says I, "Mr. Wocky-bocky," says I, "Wocky, I have thought so for years, and so's all our family." He told me I must go to the tent of the Strong Heart and eat raw dog. It don't agree with mo. I prefer simple food. I prefer pork-pie, because then I know what I'm eating. But as raw dog was all they proposed to give to me I had to eat it or starve. So at the expiration of two days I seized a tin plate and went to the chief's daughter, and I said to her in a silvery voice--in a kind of German-silvery voice--I said: "Sweet child of the forest, the pale-face wants his dog." There was nothing but his paws. I had paused too long--which reminds me that time passes--a way which time has. I was told in my youth to seize opportunity. I once tried to seize one. He was rich; he had diamonds on. As I seized him he knocked me down. Since then I have learned that he who seizes opportunity sees the penitentiary. SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS. THE JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY. "Well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley in the winter of '49, or may be it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first come to the camp. But any way, he was the curiousest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other side would suit _him_--any way just so's he got a bet _he_ was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always came out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance. There couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it. Why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first. Or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres he would bet you how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to; and if you took him up he would follow that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to _him_, he'd bet _any_ thing--the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save