英文早读第264篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
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.)
第二类涉及管理界的超级巨星——这些人能够识别出乔装成癞蛤蟆的罕见王子，并且具备管理才能，能够揭开伪装。我们向以下这些管理者致敬，比如西北工业公司的本·海涅曼、特利丹公司的亨利·辛格尔顿、国民服务产业公司的欧文·扎班，尤其是首都城市传播公司的汤姆·墨菲（他是一位真正集两类才能于一身的管理奇才，其收购行动合理地聚焦于第一类，同时其运营天赋也使他成为第二类的佼佼者）。通过直接经验和间接经验，我们深知这些管理者的成就来之不易且极为难得。（他们自己也明白这一点；这些佼佼者近年来很少进行交易，并且常常发现回购自己公司的股票是对公司资金最为明智的运用方式。）
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.)
很遗憾，你们的董事长不符合第二类管理者的标准。而且，尽管我们对促使专注于第一类收购的经济因素有相当不错的理解，但我们在这一类别的实际收购活动却时断时续且并不充分。我们说得比做得好。（我们忽视了诺亚原则：预测下雨不算本事，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.
我们偶尔尝试以低廉的价格收购癞蛤蟆，过去的报告中已记录了这些尝试的结果。显然，我们的“亲吻”毫无效果。我们在少数几个王子身上取得了不错的成果——但在收购时他们就已经是王子了。至少我们的“亲吻”没有把他们变成癞蛤蟆。最后，我们偶尔也能非常成功地以癞蛤蟆般的价格购入易于识别的王子公司的部分股权。
31.disguised：伪装的；掩饰的；乔装的
32.peel：剥；剥落；脱落
33.twofer：半价优惠；买一送一
34.vicarious：替代的；间接感受的
35.compelling：令人信服的；引人入胜的；不可抗拒的
36.sporadic：零星的；偶尔发生的
37.preaching：宣扬；宣传；宣讲
38.chronicled：把…载入编年史
