“I was surprised that he spoke in the voice and tone of an educated man, and I learnt afterwards that he also had been intended for some profession, and, like myself, had chosen the easier way. Now, you’ll not believe me when I tell you that I did not see his face, and that I carried no very vivid impression away with me. This is due to the fact that I concentrated my attention upon the frog which was tattooed on his wrist, and which afterwards, at great expense, he succeeded in having removed by a Spanish doctor at Valladolid, who specialized in that kind of work. That frog was tattooed a little askew, and I knew, and he knew too, that, whether I remembered his face or not, he had a mark which was certain to guide me back to him. “The arrangement I made was that, when I got back to America, I should send a cable to him, at an address we agreed upon, and that he was then to send me, by registered post to the Grand Hotel, Montreal, a half of the money he had in the box. To cut a long story short, I made my escape, and eventually reached the Continent by way of Hook of Holland. Encumbered with any baggage, that would have been impossible. In due course I left for the United States from Bremen, Germany, and immediately on my arrival sent the cable to Lyme, and went up to Montreal to await the arrival of the money. It did not come. I cabled again; still it did not come. “It was months after that I learnt what had happened. It came from a cutting of a newspaper, saying that Lyme had been drowned on his way to Guernsey. How he sent that, I don’t know and never have inquired. Lyme was, in fact, very much alive. He had some six million dollars’ worth of French notes, and his job was to negotiate them. His first step was to move to a Midland town, where for six months he posed as a man of business, in the meantime changing his whole appearance, shaving off his moustache and producing an artificial baldness by the application of some chemical. “Whilst he was doing this, and determined that every penny he had taken from me he would hold, he decided to make assurance doubly sure, and started in a small way the Fellowship of the Frog. The object of this was to spread the mark of identification by which I should know him, as far and wide as possible. He may have had no other idea in his mind, and probably had not, but to broadcast this mark of the frog, a little askew, the exact replica of his. Obviously, no class would be willing to suffer the tortures of tattooing for nothing. So began this curious Benefit Fund of his. From this little beginning grew the great Frog organization. Almost one of the first men he came into contact with was an old criminal named Maitland, a man who could neither read nor write.” There was a gasp. “Why, of course!” said Elk, and smacked his knee impatiently. “That is the explanation of the baby!”