At first he thought that he would beg them to leave it, but some knowledge of the petty insults which that class of men heaped upon their prisoners made him feel that this would probably be only an additional reason for their taking the animal away.

There was no place to hide it in, for they would go all round the room; unless--unless Monsieur the Viscount took it up in his hand.

And this was just what he objected to do.

All his old feelings of repugnance came back; he had not even got gloves on; his long white hands were bare, he could not touch a toad.

It was true that the beast had amused him, and that he had chatted to it; but, after all, this was a piece of childish folly--an unmanly way, to say the least, of relieving the tedium of captivity.