"Forty seconds!" announced the teacher.
The teacher wanted to try me again, but the boys said they should like to hear the general first.
"All right. Go on, Martin," said the teacher.
This time Martin failed. He finished within thirty-seven seconds, but he made a mistake. The boys shouted.
Fortunately, the time was up. So I was pronounced the victor. The teacher bought a cup of guinatan, the sweet fruit mixture that Filipino children so much love, and gave it to me. I was very proud then. When I reached home, I told my mother all that had happened. She was very happy.
—Leopoldo Faustino.
II. The Anecdote
Meaning of the term
In the sense in which a proverb is a condensed parable, an anecdote is a condensed character-sketch or biography. Like many of our other terms the word "anecdote" itself reveals to an extent its present meaning. It is derived from the Greek and signifies "something not published." This is the sense in which Cicero uses it when he speaks of a book of anecdotes on which he was engaged, but which he talks of confiding to a single friend only, as if it were not intended ever to be published. In literature the word has been used to denote either secret histories or portions of ancient writers which have remained long in manuscript and are edited for the first time. The anecdotes of Procopius, which were published in London in 1674 under the title "The Secret History of the Court of Justinian," are evidence of the first significance; and Dr. Johnson's reference to the English-French fashion of using the word for a "biographical minute passage of private life" establishes the second meaning.