Ambrose and I began to plan our life together.  Our families got to know each other.  My family, of course, you are already somewhat acquainted with.  My mother had struggled to provide for us as we grew up alone under the shadow of my absentee father.  My siblings, nowadays, held me in esteem, because they believed that I had saved them from an awful plague.  Ambroses' family was a different matter altogether. 

 

I had not realised it as I observed Ambrose from afar, but his father was an important public figure - the Mayor of our small town.  His policies were considered to be somewhat revolutionary.  He wanted to change the way in which our community lived.  He advocated free education for all frogs - no matter what their social standing.  Hell!  The frog even tried to pass a law decriminalising prostitution - although the moral majority in the town managed to shout that one down.  Needless to say, he came up against a great deal of opposition.  Even so,  Ambrose's father was in general beloved by the local populace.  He was a fair and tolerant frog whose door was always open to those with a point to be made.  This fairness and tolerance of others, however, was to prove to be his downfall. 

 

I should, at this point, explain a little bit about the economic situation of our town.  Its very simple.  The rich lived upstream, the poor downstream.  There was an obvious social divide.  The poor area was far larger than that of the rich and yet it was the rich area that had all of the amenities: schools; hospitals; movie theatres and so on.  All of these were privately owned and no one could recieve an education or gain access to hospital treatment unless they could pay for it.  All of these amenities, along with all of the businesses in the town, were controlled by one very rich family - the MacFroggers.  The patriarch of this family, Alun MacFrogger, had his webbed foot in just about every pie going.  MacFrogger had a serious objection to the policies of Ambrose's Dad.  If the Mayor had his way then MacFrogger stood to lose a great deal of money.  The events which follow should, therefore, have come as no surprise to us.  Unfortunately, that was not the case...........