And trooping after Daddy was almost everybody in the village. Not counting the women and children, there were eleven of them. They climbed upon the rock, looking for Mr. Frog. But he was nowhere in sight.
"He'll be here in a minute or two, probably," Grandaddy Beaver said hopefully, for all he looked a bit anxious.
Then somebody spied a neat building near-by, which not one of them had noticed before.
"What's this strange house?" people asked one another. "Is this where Mr. Frog lives?"
But nobody seemed to know the answer to that question.
"It can't be a shop," Grandaddy decided2, "for there's no sign on it. And nobody would have a shop without a sign."
Now, the door of the little building was shut and fastened. And the window-shades were pulled carefully down. It certainly looked as if nobody was at home.
But suddenly there came a sound that made the Beaver family jump. It came from the house—there was no doubt of that.
In fact it came right through the keyhole; and it was like nothing in the world but a sneeze.
A number of people were all ready to jump into the water and swim away, they were so startled3.
And then a snicker followed the sneeze. And by that time Grandaddy Beaver and his friends guessed who was inside the building. It was Ferdinand Frog; and he had been watching his callers all the time, through the keyhole, and listening to everything that they said.
A few felt slightly
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XI FERDINAND FROG IS IN NO HURRY
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XIII A SIXTY-INCH MEAL
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