"Ah!" he said: "You must take time to look into a little monograph of mine: _Man in Miniature; a Study of the Anthropology of the Frog_. You regard the frog, of course?"
"Oh, I say, yes--fine, you know!" I answered, my mouth watering. By Jove! I thought of the devilish good things they got up in season down at the Café Grenouille.
"My dear sir!" The professor bowed to me. "I can not express to you how gratifying to me this meeting is. I must get a list of your societies and degrees. So few appreciate the frog; so many, even in the scientific world, deride my published claim that congenious with man is the _rana mugiens_ or American bullfrog."
By Jove! they were certainly congenial with me, all right.
"Awfully hard to swallow unless well done, don't you know," I demurred thoughtfully.
The professor took another pinch and held it in front of him.
"But I have allowed for that," he added, emphasizing with his other hand. "My frog brochure meets that difficulty and whets the appetite of the most mediocre."
"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed eagerly, "we must tell Marchand about it over at the club." I was so devilish tired of his eternal _sauce délicieuse_, his _sauce aigre_, his _sauce écossaise_ and the rest, don't you know.
"Ha, French! Then Monsieur Marchand has done something with the frog, has he?" he questioned.
"Twenty-nine different stunts," Billings replied proudly. "I _know_ because I'm on the House Committee. Yes, _sir_, frogs are his specialty; that man can get more out of a frog than any other living man."
"I tell you, Professor, he's got 'em _all_ skinned!" Billings enthused.
The remark provoked a contemptuous sniff.
"Undoubtedly, that being the proper condition preliminary to comparative anatomical study," said the professor loftily. "Then the physical resemblance to a man becomes startling. I have identified every analogy with man except the beautiful phenomenon of the beating of the frog heart twenty-four hours after separation from the body--the living body, sir. Experiment upon the living human specimen is necessary for confirmation of the homologous structure of the two hearts, however. This I have not done--not yet."
He spoke gloomily. I looked at Billings blankly but I found Billings was looking at me the same way.