Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Transcriber’s Note:  Mosnar Yendis is an anagram of Sidney Ransom, the author.  Best known for advertising posters, this children’s book is a rare example of his work outside that genre.  As of this writing, known copies include two in the Library of Congress offsite storage, one in the British Library, one in the National Library of Scotland, a small handful of others in the wild, and the one used to create this version.  The NLS copy was used as a reference to verify the sequence and presence of all pages.]

[Illustration:  Front cover.]

The
Great Red Frog

Toldand pictured
by
M. Yendis

Methuen& Co.
36 Essex Street W.C. 
London

1903

Many years ago, and many miles away, there was a little Prince who was exactly like the Lord Chamberlain’s son, and sometimes even the artful old Chamberlain himself could not tell one from the other.

[Illustration]

When the Prince became King of Noware, they were still alike as two peas, and one day, when they were playing in the garden, a Magic Bush suddenly grew up behind the King.  At the same moment the Chamberlain’s Son suddenly lost his temper,

[Illustration]

And pushed his royal play-fellow into the Magic Bush.  The little King was immediately changed into a strange red Frog, which ran away croaking fearfully.

[Illustration]

The wicked Chamberlain seemed quite pleased when his son told him what had happened,

[Illustration]

And, placing a crown on his own son’s head, he said, “Your Majesty has made a mistake; how can the King be a Frog when I see your Majesty before me?” And they both smiled artfully.

[Illustration]

The Chamberlain pretended to weep, and told everybody that his Son had been turned into a Frog.

[Illustration]

So the false King sat on the throne and grew up to be very bad and ugly, because he was always afraid the real King would return.  He heard of the wonderful King of the Frogs, who carried off cattle on his back, and every time he saw a Frog he shivered all over.

[Illustration]

He was going to marry the Princess of Sumwareruther, and they expected her day after day, but she did not come.  At last they became quite anxious, when one morning a little Blue Dwarf arrived at the Palace.  He was quite breathless.

[Illustration]

His name was Omolo, and he told the King that when he and the young Princess (he was the Princess’s page) were about twenty miles from the Palace, a Great Red Frog suddenly confronted them, put the soldiers to flight, and carried off the Princess.

[Illustration]