On this Thursday, on this particlar walk to school, there was an old frog croaking in the stream behind the hedge as we went by.
"Can you hear him, Danny?"
"Yes," I said.
"That is a bullfrog calling to his wife. He does it by blowing out his dewlap and letting it go with a burp."
"What is a dewlap?" I asked.
"It's the loose skin on his throat. He can blow it up just like a little balloon."
"What happens when his wife hears him?"
"She goes hopping over to him. She is very happy to have been invited. But I'll tell you something very funny about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so pleased with the sound of his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several times before he'll stop his burping and turn round to hug her."
That made me laugh.
"Don't laugh too loud, he said, twinkling at me with his eyes. "We men are not so very different from the bullfrog."
Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World
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