Toby was in a pathetic state of protest. He made all sorts of strange noises in his throat and would doubtless have exploded had it not been for the stern gaze of Peaches. “――and a dinner of sauer-kraut, with perhaps a small portion of hard-boiled egg, have proved very satisfactory. A firm in New York is now putting on the market a ‘frog biscuit’ which I can heartily recommend.” “He’s crazy;” protested Toby, hoarsely. “He――he――” “Shut up!” warned Peaches, and Mrs. Lyle shook her head in gentle deprecation. Betty fumbled for her handkerchief. Toby glared and muttered beneath his breath, and shuffled his feet rebelliously. “The frog,” the professor was continuing, now seeming more en rapport with his subject, “should be provided with a warm bed, free from drafts. Nothing is better than the frog-kennel which may now be procured from any enterprising dealer in frog-supplies. This should be lined with cotton batting, while a few thicknesses of some soft woolen material should be provided for the frog to draw over him on cold nights.” “Huh! Just a lot of lies!” shrieked Toby. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about! Listen a minute――” But no one seemed able to listen. Peaches was holding his head in his hands, Zo was frankly weeping,――or something,――and Betty was snuffling into her handkerchief. Even Mr. Benjy seemed strangely affected. Queer sounds mingled with the speech proceeding from the direction of the radio, sounds of suppressed sobs, sighs, chokes! Mill was leaning his head against a dial, his shoulders shaking. Toby stared, open-mouthed, from one to another, and while he was still striving to understand what it all meant the professor gave utterance to what was to prove the last verbal straw. “For this,” declared the professor, “we have the word of no less an authority on the domestication of the frog than Mr. Tobias Theocritus Nott, the eminent――” There was a roar from Toby, the crash of an overturned chair, and then bedlam! “_Look out for the radio!_” shrieked Mill, stretching protective arms about the instrument. Toby was almost lost to view under the folds of the red cloth, but not for long. Breathing stertorously, he emerged, dragging behind him in his remorseless grasp the disheveled form of Barry――Barry helpless with laughter and holding in one hand a crushed megaphone and in the other a crumpled sheet of paper! “Huh!” said Toby when the audience had calmed down once more, “I knew there was something mighty funny about it! Feeding a frog with sauer-kraut and――and all that piffle! Huh! Any fellow would know that was perfectly crazy!” He gazed scornfully about him, encountered the streaming eyes of Peaches, and gave a grudging chuckle. “Well, I ain’t saying you didn’t fool me just at first,” he acknowledged, “but――shucks!――it didn’t take me long to find out! Say, who made up all that stuff? I’ll bet it was you, Peaches. Gee! you were ignorant! Why, say, you called a frog an insect right at the first of it!”