"Then I can't give you any food to-morrow night," Mr. Frog informed them, "because it would be against the rule."
"Then you can't be a member!" a hundred voices croaked.
"I am one now," Ferdinand Frog replied happily. "And what's more, I don't see how you can keep me out of your singing-parties."
There was silence for a time.
"We've been sold," some one said at last. "We've no rule to prevent this fellow from coming here. And the worst of it is, as everybody knows, his voice is so loud it will spoil all our songs."
Oddly enough, the speaker was the very one who had always objected to inviting Ferdinand Frog to join the singing parties. His own voice had always been the loudest in the whole company. And naturally he did not want anybody with a louder one to come and drown his best notes.
But now he couldn't help himself. And thereafter when the singers met in Cedar Swamp he always turned greener in the face than ever and looked as if he were about to burst, when Ferdinand Frog opened his mouth its widest and let his voice rumble forth into the night.