"The water-rat was painfully outspoken. 'Once a frog, always a frog,' he said.
"'Always?'
"'Always. Unless you can find a Princess and persuade her to kiss you.' And, being an old rat, he chuckled at his own joke.
"But the frog didn't see anything to laugh at. He just became so excited that he could hardly float, and then he turned round and started to swim back to the pool as hard as ever he could….
"By the next morning his excitement had somewhat abated. Of course he was tremendously lucky to have found a Princess. (Being an optimist, you see, he assumed that she would reappear.) But it was quite another matter to persuade her to kiss him. Still, he didn't give up hope, and every day he raced and tore after the flies, so as to get back early to the pool.
"Then one day the impossible thing happened.
"There was the Princess again on the bank of the pool, and when the frog put up his nose and fixed her with a bulging and glassy eye, she smiled at him. Very haltingly the frog swam to land and crouched at her feet, and, before he knew where he was, she had stooped and kissed him.
"The frog just shut his eyes in ecstasy and gloated upon the fulfilment of his desire. It had happened. His wish had been gratified. The change had come. He was no longer a frog. For the first time he began to wonder what he was. Probably a Prince. Oh, undoubtedly a Prince. All clad in gold and silver, with a little fair moustache. He hoped very much that he had a fair moustache. But he wouldn't put up his hand and feel, for fear of spoiling it. He wanted to look at himself gradually, beginning with his feet and working upwards. He began to wonder what sort of boots he had on. He decided that he was wearing soft gold boots, with silver laces….
"Cautiously he opened one eye and glanced at his right foot. He was quite wrong. It wasn't a gold boot at all. It was a queer-looking boot, all smooth and shiny and shaped—well, rather like—like a frog's foot. In fact, if he hadn't known that he was no longer a frog, he would have said—— A frightful thought came to him, and he opened both eyes, staring frantically…. Then he sprang to the edge of the pool and looked himself in the face…. He stood gazing so long that the minnow, who had been watching him, thought he was ill, and leaped out of the water to attract his attention. At last the frog pulled himself together and flopped back into the pool anyhow….
"And, after many days, during all of which the minnow was a great comfort, he came to realize that frogs should know better than to lift up their eyes, and should busy themselves with fly-earning, and be thankful for the air and the sun and the mud at the bottom of pools, and, last of all, look forward to that sun-bathed marsh where the flies are fat and plenteous, and there is no winter, and whither, at the end of their lives, all good frogs go."