The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

“I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; 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 nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.”

With this passage in the opening paragraph, the author sets the stage for the humorous yarn to follow. He warns readers that their credulity, and possibly their patience, is about to be tested. He also indicates that the Narrator, possibly a gullible Easterner, is himself drawn in by an elaborate practical joke.

“I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel’s, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.”

The Narrator describes a man whose appearance suggests he is just an average small-town yokel and not the clever verbal fabulist he turns out to be. Like a predator lurking in a corner, he seems benign at first, almost invisible. This quote exemplifies Twain’s satirizing of elitist attitudes toward rural Americans.

“[I]f Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him. Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph.”

Wheeler sees his chance to indulge in his favorite pastime, spinning yarns. The Narrator does not yet realize this, even if already he feels awkward with Simon blocking his exit. Still hoping the elderly bartender might possess information useful to his quest, the Narrator attends politely, about to be bamboozled by a veteran storyteller. In this respect, the author also corners the reader.