present you are only a specimen."

There was no help for it. Bobby found it impossible to move hand or
foot. He could wriggle a little,--but that was all.

"Not only is the Boy entirely useless," went on the professor, "but he
is often what might be called a pest, even to his own kind. He is
endured in the world for what he may become when he is full-grown, and
even then he is sometimes disappointing. You are familiar with many of
his objectionable ways towards the animal world, but I am sure you would
be surprised if you knew what a care and trouble he frequently is to his
own people. He can be trusted to do few kinds of work. It is difficult
to keep him clean. He doesn't know how to get his own dinner. He has a
genius for making weaker things miserable. He likes fishing, and he
longs for a gun; he collects birds' eggs; he puts butterflies on pins;
he teases his little sisters."

"Why isn't the species exterminated?" asked another frog angrily.

Then the toad near Bobby's ear spoke timidly: "I think you are a little
unjust, Professor. I have known boys who were comparatively harmless."

"It is true there may be a few, Mrs. Bufo," said the professor with
great politeness, "but as a class they may be fairly set down as of very
doubtful value. Speak up, Tadpole, and say if I have made any false
statements so far."

Bobby fairly shouted in his eagerness to be heard.

"We do work," he said. "We have to go to school every day."