the net swung over me, and both of us caught roughly and inelegantly from the ground, in a manner I had never before experienced. I struggled, but only succeeded in getting one leg through the net. My position was indeed perilous. The last thing I heard in the garden was the laughter of my friend who had the duller coat. So can the frog heart be upon occasion very hard. “I was thrown down afterwards upon a table that had neither moss nor anything else upon it, still enveloped in the hateful net, so that there was no chance of me getting away, and there I stayed for a long time, choking with fear and partial suffocation.” A tremor ran through its little body. “I shouldn’t like to speak of all that followed. As frogs go, and being cold-blooded, I can stand a fair amount. But that was neither here nor there. I don’t know how long I lived there, but it was a long time, and almost every day I was put to some torture or other. Often others used to come in to see how the different inflictions affected me, and once someone remonstrated with him, and said I must suffer; but he said he was always very careful with me, and the other one seemed satisfied. “‘Besides,’ he added, ‘it is in the cause of science. And what little inconveniences may be suffered by this reptile may be the means of saving many lives.’ “That night as I was lying in my prison, with every limb aching and swollen, and big pains shooting through my body, I thought on his words. It was only the extreme pain that kept me from growing proud, so instead I felt a little thankful. “But after that the times of torture were growing more frequent, or I less able to bear them, and I longed and prayed to something I couldn’t understand to set me free. And one day, as he took me out of my cell, he said to someone who was with him at the time—I think he called him his assistant: ‘This thing is on its last legs; I’ll just try one more experiment with it, and then it can be thrown to the midden.’ “That was a little comfort to me. “But just then he ran something through my hand that made me struggle and gasp with pain, and then the other three, and I was lying fast nailed to a board, and could not even struggle. I’ll never forget it, though the worst never comes back to me. It was the last time, the last time with a vengeance, and there I died. And I think I must have looked very queer at the last, for the last thing I was conscious of was that someone laughed. But how could one compose one’s features nailed to a board, and suffering agony. And when I woke up I was in this pretty garden, and I was as feeble as a baby. But my master tended me with his own hands, and before long I had grown strong and happy again, and less wishful to been seen. And though my coat is brighter now than ever it had been, I think less of it and more of other things. But even now it’s sweet to hear a little praise, and never anyone has come to see my master but they have a pleasant word for me.”