VII
THE SINGING-PARTY
Ferdinand Frog lost no time, after Tired Tim left him. He jumped into the swamp and made straight towards the very middle of it, whence he could already hear the chorus of the numerous Frog family; for the singing-party had begun.
Mr. Frog made all haste, not wishing to miss any more of the fun. Now swimming, now leaping from one hummock to another—or sometimes to an old stump—he quickly reached the place where the Frog family were enjoying themselves.
"Here he is!" several of the singers exclaimed as soon as Ferdinand Frog's head popped out of the water, in their midst.
He saw at once that they had been expecting him; and he smiled and bowed—and waited for the company to stop singing and give him a warm greeting with their cold, damp hands. But except for those first few words, no one paid the slightest attention to the newcomer.
In fact, nobody even took the trouble to nod to Ferdinand Frog—much less to shake hands with him and tell him that he was welcome.
Meanwhile one song followed another with hardly a pause between them. And Mr. Frog found that he did not know the words of even one.
He was so impatient that at last he climbed upon an old fallen tree-trunk, which stuck out of the greenish-black water, and began to roar his favorite song, while he beat time for the other singers. The name of that song was "A Frog on a Log in a Bog"; and Ferdinand Frog thought that he couldn't have chosen another so fitting.