without being told. Everybody does. But not everybody knows that they
were born in the same place. They were. Yes, Sir, they were. They were
born in the Smiling Pool. Both had long tails and for a while no legs,
and they played and swam together without ever going on shore. In fact,
when they were babies, they couldn't live out of the water. And people
who saw them didn't know the difference between them and called them by
the same names--tadpoles or pollywogs. But when they grew old enough to
have legs and get along without tails, they parted company.

You see, it was this way: Grandfather Frog (of course he wasn't
grandfather then) loved the Smiling Pool so well that he couldn't think
of leaving it. He heard all about the Great World and what a wonderful
place it was, but he couldn't and wouldn't believe that there could be
any nicer place than the Smiling Pool, and so he made up his mind that
he would live there always.

But Mr. Toad could hardly wait to get rid of his tail before turning his
back on the Smiling Pool and starting out to see the Great World.
Nothing that Grandfather Frog could say would stop him, and away Mr.
Toad went, when he was so small that he could hide under a clover leaf.
Grandfather Frog didn't expect ever to see him again. But he did,
though it wasn't for a long, long time. And when he did come back, he
had grown so that Grandfather Frog hardly knew him at first. And right
then and there began a dispute which they have kept up ever since:
whether it was best to go out into the Great World or remain in the home
of childhood. Each was sure that what he had done was best, and each is
sure of it to this day.

So whenever old Mr. Toad visits Grandfather Frog, as he does every once
in a while, they are sure to argue and argue on this same old subject.