"He's gone under," remarked one of the boys, regretfully. "Wouldn't he have made a splendid fry?"
Mr. Thompson rose with his nose under a lily pad and shuddered. His friend came up beside him. "What did you want to speak for when those boys were there? You only let them know where we were," he said, rather crossly. "That is the reason we wear green coats, so that we can sit among the lily pads and not be seen."
Mr. Thompson replied that he had forgot himself, and spoke without thinking. "So that's the reason for wearing green coats?" he added.
"Yes," replied the old frog. "Now you see my son here wears brown long clothes," he added, pointing to a pollywog that wiggled up to him. "That is because he stays on the bottom, and if he sees a boy, he keeps still, and his enemies think that he is a lump of mud or a stone."
"Ah," said Mr. Thompson, "and green coats have been in fashion for a long time?"
"Ever since the days of Homer. Don't you remember in Homer's poem, 'The Battle of the Frogs and Mice,' he says, 'Green was the suit his arming heroes chose'?"
"Oh yes," answered Mr. Thompson.
"My great-grandfather was in that battle, and my uncle was the original frog who would a-wooing go," continued the old frog; "but you know he got eaten up. He was a French frog, I think; at least I never saw an American frog with an opera hat."
How much more the old frog would have said Mr. Thompson never knew, for there on the bank he saw his beloved Angelina, sitting beside his deserted book, weeping as if her heart would break.
"I am here, dear one," he shouted. At the same moment he felt a sensation of dampness, and found himself lying half in the pond. He rose and accompanied Miss Angelina home; then, after putting on dry clothes, he related his adventures to a company of his friends. All were interested except one skeptical young man.