英文早讀第264篇，選自巴菲特年度信，友才翻譯。

The second category involves the managerial superstars ‐ men who can recognize that rare prince who is disguised as a toad, and who have managerial abilities that enable them to peel away the disguise. We salute such managers as Ben Heineman at Northwest Industries, Henry Singleton at Teledyne, Erwin Zaban at National Service Industries, and especially Tom Murphy at Capital Cities Communications (a real managerial “twofer”, whose acquisition efforts have been properly focused in Category 1 and whose operating talents also make him a leader of Category 2). From both direct and vicarious experience, we recognize the difficulty and rarity of these executives’ achievements. (So do they; these champs have made very few deals in recent
years, and often have found repurchase of their own shares to be the most sensible employment of corporate capital.)
第二類涉及管理界的超級(jí)巨星——這些人能夠識(shí)別出喬裝成癩蛤蟆的罕見王子，并且具備管理才能，能夠揭開偽裝。我們向以下這些管理者致敬，比如西北工業(yè)公司的本·海涅曼、特利丹公司的亨利·辛格爾頓、國民服務(wù)產(chǎn)業(yè)公司的歐文·扎班，尤其是首都城市傳播公司的湯姆·墨菲（他是一位真正集兩類才能于一身的管理奇才，其收購行動(dòng)合理地聚焦于第一類，同時(shí)其運(yùn)營天賦也使他成為第二類的佼佼者）。通過直接經(jīng)驗(yàn)和間接經(jīng)驗(yàn)，我們深知這些管理者的成就來之不易且極為難得。（他們自己也明白這一點(diǎn)；這些佼佼者近年來很少進(jìn)行交易，并且常常發(fā)現(xiàn)回購自己公司的股票是對公司資金最為明智的運(yùn)用方式。）

Your Chairman, unfortunately, does not qualify for Category 2. And, despite a reasonably good understanding of the economic factors compelling concentration in Category 1, our actual acquisition activity in that category has been sporadic and inadequate. Our preaching was better than our performance. (We neglected the Noah principle: predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does.)
很遺憾，你們的董事長不符合第二類管理者的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。而且，盡管我們對促使專注于第一類收購的經(jīng)濟(jì)因素有相當(dāng)不錯(cuò)的理解，但我們在這一類別的實(shí)際收購活動(dòng)卻時(shí)斷時(shí)續(xù)且并不充分。我們說得比做得好。（我們忽視了諾亞原則：預(yù)測下雨不算本事，建造方舟才行。）

We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes ‐ but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn’t turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily‐identifiable princes at toad‐like prices.
我們偶爾嘗試以低廉的價(jià)格收購癩蛤蟆，過去的報(bào)告中已記錄了這些嘗試的結(jié)果。顯然，我們的“親吻”毫無效果。我們在少數(shù)幾個(gè)王子身上取得了不錯(cuò)的成果——但在收購時(shí)他們就已經(jīng)是王子了。至少我們的“親吻”沒有把他們變成癩蛤蟆。最后，我們偶爾也能非常成功地以癩蛤蟆般的價(jià)格購入易于識(shí)別的王子公司的部分股權(quán)。

31.disguised：偽裝的；掩飾的；喬裝的
32.peel：剝；剝落；脫落
33.twofer：半價(jià)優(yōu)惠；買一送一
34.vicarious：替代的；間接感受的
35.compelling：令人信服的；引人入勝的；不可抗拒的
36.sporadic：零星的；偶爾發(fā)生的
37.preaching：宣揚(yáng)；宣傳；宣講
38.chronicled：把…載入編年史