smugness of appearance about the frog that provokes a smile in the
irreverent. Still, the frog has received some consideration in his time.
The great Homer himself did not disdain to sing the mighty battle of the
frogs and mice; and Aristophanes gave the frogs a most important chorus
in one of his comedies; moreover, calling the whole comedy "The Frogs,"
although he had his choice of title-names among many very notable
characters--Æschylus, Euripides, Bacchus, Pluto, Proserpine, and other
leaders of society. Still, in every way the frog and the toad are
underesteemed--as though such a thing as a worthy family frog or an
honourable toad of business were in Nature impossible. It is not as
though they were useless. The frog's hind legs make an excellent dish
for those who like it, as well as a joke for those who don't. Powdered
toad held in the palm is a fine thing to stop the nose bleeding--or, at
any rate, it was a couple of hundred years ago, according to a dear old
almanac I have. On the same unimpeachable authority I may fearlessly
affirm a smashed frog--smashed on the proper saint's day--in conjunction
with hair taken from a ram's forehead and a nail stolen from a piebald
mare's shoe, to be a certain remedy for ague, worn in a little leather
bag. If it fails it will be because the moon was in the wrong quarter,
or the mare was not sufficiently piebald, or the nail was not stolen
with sufficient dishonesty, or some mistake of that sort.

[Illustration: A SMALL LUNCH.]

Personally, I am rather fond of frogs and toads. This, of course, in a
strictly platonic sense, and entirely apart from dinner. A toad I admire
even more than a frog, because of his gentlemanly calm. He never rushes
at his food ravenously, as do so many other creatures. Place a worm near
him and you will see. He inspects the worm casually, first with one eye
and then with the other, as who would say: "Luncheon? Certainly.