And so Warren Whatmore rolled up his sleeves and joined the search. In fact, once he got the hang of it, he realised we could narrow the search area.
 “All the Union Guaranteed are green forms, right?”
 “Yes,” I said.
 “So we can ignore all of the other colours.”
    There were pink, and yellow, and several shades of blue, each depending upon which liquidated company the forms originated in. I thought about it.  “Yes,” said I.
 “Also, there’s obviously no need to look at those before June 1959, when the new policy began.”
 “No,” said I.
And I left off the shelf I was at and went to another.

​

During the millennia that frogs and men have lived in the same world, it is probable that men have hunted frogs. And during that time a pattern of hunt and party has developed. The man with the net or bow or lance or gun creeps noiselessly, as he thinks toward the frog. The pattern requires that the frog sit very still and wait. The rules of the game require the frog to wait until the final flicker of a second, when the net is descending, when the lance is in the air, when the finger squeezes the trigger, then the frog jumps, plops into the water, swims to the bottom and waits until the man goes away. That is the way it is done, the way it has always been done. Frogs have every right to expect that it will always be done that way. Now and then the net is too quick, the lance pierces, the gun flicks and the frog is gone, but that is all fair and in the frame-work. Frogs don’t resent that. But how could they have anticipated Mack’s new method? How could they have foreseen the horror that followed? The sudden flashing of lights, the shouting and squealing of men, the rush of feet. Every frog leaped, plopped in the pool, and swam frantically to the bottom. Then into the pool plunged the line of men, stamping, churning, moving in a crazy line up the pool, flinging their feet about. Hysterically the frogs, displaced from their placid spots swam ahead of the crazy thrashing feet and the feet came on. Frogs are good swimmers, but they haven’t much endurance. Down the pool they went until finally they were bunched and crowded against the ends. And the feet and wildly splashing bodies followed them. A few frogs lost their heads and floundered among the feet and got through and these were saved. But the majority decided to leave this pool forever, to find a new home where this kind of thing didn’t happen. A wave of frantic, frustrated frogs, big ones, little ones, brown ones, green ones men frogs and women frogs, a wave of them broke over the bank, crawled, leaped, scrambled. They clamped up the grass, they clutched at each other, little ones rode big ones. And then—horror on horror—the flashlights found them. Two men gathered them like berries. The line came out of the water and closed in on their rear and gathered them like potatoes. Tens and fifties of them were flung into gunny-sacks and the sacks filled with tired, frightened and disillusioned frogs, with dripping, whimpering frogs. Some got away, of course, and some had been saved in the pool. But never in frog history had such an execution taken place. Frogs by the pound, by the fifty pounds. They weren’t counted, but there must have been six or seven hundred. Then happily Mack tied up the necks of the sacks. They were soaking, dripping wet and the air was cool. They had a short one on the grass before they went back to the house so they wouldn’t catch cold….
… “We shouldn’t go forgettin’ we’re doin’ all this for Doc,” he said. “From the way things are pannin’ out, it looks like Doc is a pretty lucky guy.”…
  Probably John Steinbeck’s most delightful work is the magical volume Cannery Row and its sequel Sweet Thursday, which tell of a bunch of derro’s who live rough down by the abandoned cannery. The only local not in decay is Doc, a marine biologist who collects and analyses samples in the area. Doc is a lonely sort of chap and the boys try to help him as much as they can. The frog-hunt sequence is the funniest thing in American literature. The mere mention that he lacks frog samples sets the boys in motion, capturing hundreds of them in sacks and taking them to the lab where they find Doc absent. They are so pleased with their achievement that they have a party with Doc’s booze, drink it all, wreck the place and…
No one has studied the psychology of a dying party. It may be raging, howling, boiling, and then fever sets in and a little silence and then quickly, quickly, it is gone, the guests go home or go to sleep or wander away to some other affair and they leave a dead body.
  The lights blazed in the laboratory. The front door hung sideways on one hinge. The floor was littered with broken glass. Phonograph records, some broken, some only nicked, were strewn about. The plates with pieces of steaks ends and coagulated grease were on the floor, on top of the bookcases, under the bed. Whisky glasses lay sadly on their sides. Someone trying to climb the bookcases had pulled out a whole section of books and spilled them in broken-backed confusion on the floor. And it was empty, it was over.
  Through the broken end of the packing case a frog hopped and sat feeling the air for danger, and then another joined him. They could smell the damp, cool, air coming in the door and in through the broken windows, One of them sat on the fallen card which said “Welcome Home, Doc.” And then to two hopped timidly toward the door.
For quite a while a little river of frogs hopped down the steps, a swirling, moving, river. For quite a while Cannery Row was crawling with frogs—was overrun with frogs. A taxi which brought a very late customer to the Bear Flag squashed five frogs in the street. But well before dawn they had all gone. Some found the sewer and some worked their way up hill to the reservoir and some went into culverts and some only hid among the weeds in the vacant lot.
  And the lights blazed in the quiet empty laboratory…
  Such well-meaning efforts to aid humanity is the basis of the book and it is great.