There was much comment among the party and then an idea came suddenly to the Young Lady, who was by no means lacking in sentiment or fancy. "I wonder," she mused, "what that toad was thinking of during all the centuries of his dark imprisonment? Mr. Poet," she broke out, "You are to retire to the end of the car and, for one hour, at least, no word may you utter. I will find you paper and pencil now, and you may not speak again until you have written a poem telling of the sensations of that toad when he was restored to light and air again." The Poet was gallant. "One cannot do well always under duress," was his response, "but one should certainly make an effort, under the circumstances. I'll do my best, at least." And so, amid the laughter of the passengers, he was hustled off to a corner and left to his fancies and his struggle. The conversation went on and the sufferer in the corner was almost forgotten save, of course, by the Young Lady. It was a little after the hour's end, when he emerged, exhibiting a rather graceful diffidence. And this is what he read: THE TOAD FROM THE MINES I am a toad, Squat and grimy and rough and brown, I come from a queer abode, From down, down, down, Where, for centuries, no light Had fallen on my sight, Until, with sudden shock, Parted the rock, Yielded the stony clamps And blazed in my dim eyes the miners' lamps! What view is now unfurled! It is another world From that I left Centuries ago, to which they've brought me Since the black rock was cleft Where thus they caught me. Centuries ago, one day, I was upon a river bank, at play. Nature was very fair; I fed on buzzing insects of the air, Beneath tall palms that grew beside the stream In which huge monsters bathed. It did not seem A world like this at all. It was more grand. The mighty waters washed a teeming land And life was great and fervid. Suddenly Upheaved the land, upheaved the awful sea; The earth was riven; toppling forests bent, To sink and disappear in that vast rent! Down, down, down. The landscape plunged from light and life away And now again, to me alone, 'tis day. How odd it all appears! Encysted in the rock ten thousand years, I am a stranger here; I cannot praise Those who released me; mine are not your ways. In this new life I have no enterprise; The sunshine in my eyes But gives me pain. Put me in some niche of the rock again, It is the only fit abode For me--a prehistoric toad. There was a buzz of applause as the Poet concluded. Then up rose Colonel Livingston.