“What’s the soup _made_ of, Bruno?” said Sylvie, who had put a spoonful of it to her lips, and was making a wry face over it.
And Bruno’s answer was anything but encouraging. “Bits of things!”
The entertainment was to conclude with “Bits of Shakespeare,” as Sylvie expressed it, which were all to be done by Bruno, Sylvie being fully engaged in making the Frogs keep their heads towards the stage: after which Bruno was to appear in his real character, and tell them a Story of his own invention.
“Will the Story have a Moral to it?” I asked Sylvie, while Bruno was away behind the hedge, dressing for the first ‘Bit.’
“I _think_ so,” Sylvie replied doubtfully. “There generally _is_ a Moral, only he puts it in too soon.”
“And will he _say_ all the Bits of Shakespeare?”
“No, he’ll only _act_ them,” said Sylvie. “He knows hardly any of the words. When I see what he’s dressed like, I’ve to tell the Frogs what character it is. They’re always in such a hurry to guess! Don’t you hear them all saying ‘What? What?’” And so indeed they were: it had only sounded like croaking, till Sylvie explained it, but I could now make out the “Wawt? Wawt?” quite distinctly.
“But why do they try to guess it before they see it?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvie said: “but they always _do_. Sometimes they begin guessing weeks and weeks before the day!”
(So now, when you hear the Frogs croaking in a particularly melancholy way, you may be sure they’re trying to guess Bruno’s next Shakespeare ‘Bit’. Isn’t _that_ interesting?)
However, the chorus of guessing was cut short by Bruno, who suddenly rushed on from behind the scenes, and took a flying leap down among the Frogs, to re-arrange them.
For the oldest and fattest Frog—who had never been properly arranged so that he could see the stage, and so had no idea what was going on—was getting restless, and had upset several of the Frogs, and turned others round with their heads the wrong way. And it was no good at all, Bruno said, to do a ‘Bit’ of Shakespeare when there was nobody to look at it (you see he didn’t count _me_ as anybody). So he set to work with a stick, stirring them up, very much as you would stir up tea in a cup, till most of them had at least _one_ great stupid eye gazing at the stage.
