"But they grew beautiful flowers, and Mrs. Frog said that these reminded her of corals. The cactus flowers were indeed her only consolation, and she would sit under them all day. She didn't dare to hop out on the sands, for the birds were sure to see her and eat her, and so she took to running her tongue out and catching what she could in that way."
"Very convenient, I'm sure," Kingfisher observed. "I wish I could do it myself. It would save me much gadding about."
"Yes, my young friend, it would; but you'd never be patient enough. And Mrs. Frog is just so much patience on a lily pad. It's her whole life.
"She learned patience, you may be sure, on that desert, and her enemies were so many that she feared for her life every time she ventured out from under the cactus blossom. So she only went out at night and was, even then, careful about getting into the moonshine.
"Poor thing; she nearly starved to death, and grew thinner and thinner until her beautiful figure was gone. Then her skin shriveled into creases, and she finally got the leathery look that she has to-day."
"And how did she change her color?" Kingfisher begged to know.
"I don't think I care to tell you," said Professor Crane, with a sudden change in his voice.
This produced great surprise in little Mr. Kingfisher, for he never knew the Professor to withhold anything. Usually he was only too eager to load you with facts. So the small bird kept silence very respectfully, not knowing just what to say.
"You are yourself very saucy, and full of your foolishness," the wise Crane finally observed, "and you are not likely to believe what I tell you. But you can make what you choose of it, and it may do you good to know."
Professor Crane cleared his throat, and wagged his long bill up and down several times, much as a truly bearded professor strokes his chin in delivering the hardest part of his lecture. Then he coughed, for that is effective, too, and changed from his left foot to his right.