NOTEBOOK
2gth. The old, old thing. We shall have to stand the
weather, but as J. says we won't stand the dish-water and
beans any longer, by God.
30th. Jan.—moved to the new hotel, just opened—good
fare and coffee that a Christian may drink without jeop-
ardizing his eternal soul. Dick Stoker came over today
from Tuttletown, Tuolumne Co.
It was just at this time at Angel's Camp that
Mark Twain heard the story of the jumping
frog and missed a big pocket of gold. The pocket
mentioned the 27th. This incident has been re-
lated elsewhere^1 but the memorandum which
became the basis of the frog story belongs here.
Coleman with his jumping frog—bet a stranger $50.—
Stranger had no frog and C. got him one:—In the mean-
time stranger filled C's frog full of shot and he couldn't
jump. The stranger's frog won.
Across this pencil note he added later, in ink:
Wrote this story for Artemus [Ward]—his idiot pub-
lisher Carleton, gave it to Clapp's Saturday Press.
There is also in this book a memorandum of
a story written many years later, "The Cali-
fornian's Tale." The note reads:
Baden, crazy, asking after his wife who had been dead
13 years—first knowledge of his being deranged.
Feb. 3. Dined at the Frenchman's in order to let Dick
see how he does things. Had "Hell-fire" soup and the old
regular beans and dish-water. The Frenchman has 4
kinds of soup which he furnishes to customers only on
great occasions. They are popularly known among the
boarders as "Hell-fire," "General Debility," "Insanity"
*Mark Twain—A BiografAy, pp. 272-273.
7