A frog who had been sitting up all night in neighbourly converse with
an echo of elegant leisure, went out in the grey of the morning to
obtain a cheap breakfast. Seeing a tadpole approach,
"Halt!" he croaked, "and show cause why I should not eat you."
The tadpole stopped and displayed a fine tail.
"Enough," said the frog: "I mistook you for one of us; and if there is
anything I like, it is frog. But no frog has a tail, as a matter of
course."
While he was speaking, however, the tail ripened and dropped off, and
its owner stood revealed in his edible character.
"Aha!" ejaculated the frog, "so that is your little game! If, instead
of adopting a disguise, you had trusted to my mercy, I should have
spared you. But I am down upon all manner of deceit."
And he had him down in a moment.
Learn from this that he would have eaten him anyhow.