under a glass case it would make such a pretty and appropriate
_pendant_, in his museum, to that interesting frog with which you--"

"Oh, you sneaking eavesdropper!" cried Peterkin, laughing. "It is
really too bad that a fellow can't have a little _tete-a-tete_ with a
friend but you and Ralph must be thrusting your impertinent noses in the
way."

"Not to mention the rhinoceros," observed Jack.

"Ah! to be sure--the rhinoceros; yes, I might have expected to find you
in such low company, for `birds of a feather,' you know, are said to
`flock together.'"

"If there be any truth in that," said I, "you are bound, on the same
ground, to identify yourself with the frog."

"By the way," cried Peterkin, starting up and looking around the spot on
which his interesting _tete-a-tete_ had taken place, "where is the frog?
It was just here that--Ah!--oh!--oh! poor, poor frog!

"`Your course is run, your days are o'er;
We'll never have a chat no more,'

"As Shakespeare has it. Well, well, who would have thought that so
conversable and intelligent a creature should have come to such a
melancholy end?"

The poor frog had indeed come to a sad and sudden end, and I felt quite
sorry for it, although I could not help smiling at my companion's quaint
manner of announcing the fact.

Not being gifted with the activity of Peterkin, it had stood its ground
when the rhinoceros charged, and had received an accidental kick from
the great foot of that animal which had broken its back and killed it
outright.

"There's one comfort, however," observed Jack, as we stood over the
frog's body: "you have been saved the disagreeable necessity of killing
it yourself, Ralph."

This was true, and I was not sorry that the rhinoceros had done me this
service; for, to say truth, I have ever felt the necessity of killing
animals in cold blood to be one of the few disagreeable points in the
otherwise delightful life of a naturalist. To shoot animals in the heat
and excitement of the chase I have never felt to be particularly
repulsive or difficult; but the spearing of an insect, or the deliberate
killing of an unresisting frog, are duties which I have ever performed
with a feeling of deep self-abhorrence.

Carefully packing my frog in leaves, and placing it in my pouch, I
turned with my companions to quit the scene of our late encounter and
return to our camp, on arriving at which we purposed sending back
Makarooroo to cut off the horn of the