“Oh, no, Sir!  No, indeed!” exclaimed Peter.  “I don’t mean anything of the kind.  I—­I—­well, if you please, Sir, I don’t see you at all, so how can I be staring at you?  I’m sure from the sound of your voice that you must be somebody very important.  Please excuse me for seeming to stare.  I was just looking for you, that is all.”

A little movement in the water close to a big green lily-pad caught Peter’s eyes, and then out on the big green lily-pad climbed Grandfather Frog.  If Peter had stared before he doubly stared now, eyes and mouth wide open.  Grandfather Frog was looking his very best in his handsome green coat and white-and-yellow waistcoat.  But Peter had hardly noticed these at all.

“Why, you’re all mouth!” he exclaimed, and then looked very much ashamed of his impoliteness.

Grandfather Frog’s great goggly eyes twinkled.  He knew that Peter was very young and innocent and just starting out in the Great World.  He knew that Peter didn’t intend to be impolite.

“Not quite,” said he good-naturedly.  “Not quite all mouth, though I must admit that it is of good size.  The fact is, I wouldn’t have it a bit smaller if I could.  If it were any smaller, I should miss many a good meal, and if I were forced to do that, I am afraid I should be very ill-tempered indeed.  The truth is, I am very proud of my big mouth.  I don’t know of any one who has a bigger one for their size.”

He opened his mouth wide, and it seemed to Peter that Grandfather Frog’s whole head simply split in halves.  He hadn’t supposed anybody in all the Great World possessed such a mouth.

“Where did you get it?” gasped Peter, and then felt that he had asked a very foolish question.

Grandfather Frog chuckled.  “I got it from my father, and he got his from his father, and so on, way back to the days when the world was young and the Frogs ruled the world,” said he.  “Would you like to hear about it?”

“I’d love to!” cried Peter.  So he settled himself comfortably on the bank of the Smiling Pool for the first of many, many stories he was to hear from Grandfather Frog.

“Chug-a-rum!” began Grandfather Frog.  You know he always begins a story that way.  “Chug-a-rum!  Once upon a time the Great World was mostly water, and most of the people lived in the water.  It was in those days that my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather lived.  Those were happy days for the Frogs.  Yes, indeed, those were happy days for the Frogs.  Of course they had enemies, but those enemies were all in the water.  They didn’t have to be watching out for danger from the air and from the land, as I do now.  There was plenty to eat and little to do, and the Frog tribe increased very fast.  In fact, the Frogs increased so fast that after a while there wasn’t plenty to eat.  That is, there wasn’t plenty of the kind of food they had been used to, which was mostly water plants, and water bugs and such things.