Long Bill Wren looked uncomfortable. He was afraid his wife had hurt Mr. Frog's feelings.
But Mr. Frog smiled and bowed politely to Mrs. Wren.
"Surely you're not afraid your children will drown in my care?" he cried.
"No!" she told him. "The trouble is I'd be nervous, because one of my young brothers was eaten by a member of your family."
Ferdinand Frog's face fell. But not for long.
"I don't see how that could have come about," he declared. "It must have been an accident."
"Perhaps!" Long Bill's wife replied. "Anyhow, I want no such accidents to happen to my children." And she looked sternly at her new neighbor.
Mr. Frog glanced away uneasily.
"I'm afraid," he observed, "you do not trust me. But I assure you I had no idea of eating any of your little ones. They'd be perfectly safe with me. Why, every one of them is so plump I'd never be able to decide which one to choose first!"
He often wondered, afterward, why Mrs. Wren promptly called all her children into the house.