"That's it. I have changed my mind. I will show up that Patagonian fellow in a book."
The professor, as he received the little slips of paper, scattered them into tiny bits and threw them overboard.
"You are quite sure you have not been fooled also on the fur-bearing pollywog?" asked Frank.
"Quite," replied the professor, solemnly. "Professor Tapper is one of our greatest savants."
"But so was your friend who told you the Patagonians were a friendly tribe," argued Frank.
"I am quite sure that Professor Tapper could not have been mistaken, however."
"Has Professor Tapper ever been in the South Polar regions?" asked
Billy, seriously.
"Why, no," admitted the professor; "but he has proved that there must be a fur-bearing pollywog down here."
"In what manner has he been able to prove it?" asked Harry.
"He has written three volumes about it. They are in the Congressional
library. Then he contributed a prize-essay on it to the Smithsonian
Institute, which has bound it up with my report on the Canadian Bull
Frog. He is a very learned man."