Lugging his "moist secret" along with him, Jack, flushed and breathless, came up to us, exclaiming:
"They were to grow as big as rabbits before you saw them! Such a shame! I never thought they would kick up a row like that. Now for it!"—and he turned out the bag. "This is 'Grace,' and this is 'Beauty.'"
Two immense frogs rolled clumsily on the ground, and recovering their feet, sat squat before us, swelling and puffing with a ludicrous air of insulted dignity, while peals of laughter greeted them on all sides.
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are two very handsome young specimens of the famous African bullfrog," said Jack, pretending to be offended at the mingled disgust and amusement occasioned by their appearance; "they are but half-grown, and I hoped to maintain them in seclusion until they reached full size, when I would have introduced them with proper éclat. But since their talent for music has brought them precociously into public notice, I must beg for your kind and indulgent patronage, and—leave to take them back to the swamp!"
Great clapping of hands followed Jack's speech.
"Grace" and "Beauty" were examined, and commented on with much interest, and voted decidedly handsome "in their way."
Their general color was greenish brown, mottled and spotted with reddish brown and yellow; the sides green and black; the under part yellow, mottled with orange. The eyes were positively beautiful, of a rich chestnut hue, covered with golden white dots, which shone with a metallic luster. The skin of the body was puckered into longitudinal folds.
By general consent they were remanded to the swamp.
Shortly after our return to Rockburg, my wife drew my attention to the somewhat neglected state of our dear old summer residence at Falconhurst, begging me to devote some time to its restoration and embellishment.
This I most willingly undertook, and we removed thither, as soon as the boys had completed the arrangement of the artificial salt-lick to their satisfaction.