Me and Joe we were riding on the upper deck of a large red bus, I like double deckers you can see over walls into places you can not see from ground level and I like being nosy. We were on our way to the village of Patting-le-Pots taking a bottle of vaccine from Mr Peperday to the local vet.

We were sitting half way down towards the back of the buss under the red button that rang the bell and we were discussing, or should I say that I was discussing our forth coming weekend cricket match at Basby. Joe was not listening, he was more interested in looking for something in the bottom of his duffle bag. I was still talking and Joe was still not listening when out of the corner of my left eye I caught sight of a rather peculiar sign. I stopped talking and turned to have a better look, I did not quite believe what I was seeing.

There was a large sign hanging from one of those old fashioned ornamental iron poles but it was not the sign that caught my eye it was the words that really surprised me. On a dark red background in fading gold letters was written the words ' The Erudite Frog '.

As the bus came level with the sign it slowed down a little allowing me time to have a good look at the building behind this rather peculiar sign. I expected to see something odd but it was a simply a smart Elizabethan town house. There were stone steps leading up to a grand stone entrance porch, a large panelled door and four large windows. The house was standing on its own behind some low iron railings and it seemed sort of lonely as it was set back quite a way from the general line of the street.

" Have a look at that." I said, turning to Joe as the bus continued on its way.

" Look at what." ask Joe.

His attention had been so fixed on rummaging about in the bottom of his duffel bag that by the time he looked up the bus had moved on past the building and the rather odd sign.

" A sign we've just passed." I said. " That had ' The Erudite Frog ' written on it in big gold letters."

" Don't be silly." said Joe. " You must have misread it."

" I don't think so." I said looking back, but by now the Erudite frog had long gone.

The bus trundled along and we sat in silence, Joe continued to rummage about in the bottom of his duffle bag and I began to wonder if I had in fact misread the sign, which was now disappearing into the distance behind us.

On the way back from Patting-le-Pots I made a special point of looking out for the rather odd sign. I also made sure Joe was looking by sitting on his duffel bag. As the sign came into view on the opposite side of the road I told Joe to have a good look. When the bus came nearer to the sign Joe had to agree it was most peculiar. It actually did say 'The Erudite Frog'. I told Joe to have a look at the house as we passed, as it was a funny sort place. It seemed bit grand for a pub, it certainly did not look like one. The bus continued on it way passed the building and once again I lost sight of the sign. Joe however agreed with me that it certainly required further investigation.

Why the name on a sign should occupy so much of our thoughts in the next few days I am not quite sure but it did. None of our friends had ever heard of The Erudite Frog and to be quite frank none of them cared much either, except for Sprag who you can't really count. We decided to pay a return visit to the place but it turned out that none of the busses actually stopped anywhere near the place. This meant it was going to need a special effort on our part if we were ever to put our curiosity to rest. The special effort in this case meaning the famous bicycle.

When I suggested this Joes only comment was it was miles away. I told him we would not be able to rest until we had got to the bottom of the mystery. Joe muttered while I was getting the bicycle out of the garage that it was hundreds of miles. I was not listening I was thinking of the glory, we would go down in history as the first men to discover The Erudite Frog. When I expressed my thoughts to Joe his only comment was that we would be the first men to die in the attempt.

" Do I detect a subtle suspicion that below that calm exterior of yours there belays a slight reluctance to accompany one." I said.

" If I'd understood that I'd reply." said Joe

" If you don't want to go just say so." I said.

" I do not want to go." said Joe in a loud voice.

" Get on."

Joe climbed onto the back seat of the bicycle and we headed out into uncharted suburbia, to the place of The Erudite Frog.

Now a tandem is not the best sort of bicycle for riding around town, it is too big and just is not as manoeuvrable as a single seater. It has one advantage however over all other bicycles, it can produce a good turn of speed when you are both making the effort. By making the effort I mean when a certain someone on the back seat has not got his feet on the cross bar looking through his binoculars shouting, hey did you see that Redstart in the hedge?.

This turn of speed was to come in very handy this day when we were passing Apache country, otherwise known as the Doomwood estate. We could see the Doomwood estate as soon as we rounded the gas works. The estate was known locally as Apache gap and we were never quite sure why, we were soon to find out. The road takes a long sweeping ark around the edge of the estate, flats and houses form an almost solid wall of brickwork along the inner side of the road. From these buildings only small passages and footpaths led out onto the main roadway.

As we started slowly down the road around Apache Gap a few small children on little bicycles came out from the alley ways and started following. Soon there were more, each time we passed and opening some more came out. As the group of children got bigger they started screaming and whooping and as others joined the group they were beginning to surround us. As the numbers grew they started to make making rather a nuisance of themselves and it was all beginning to get a bit dangerous.

" Indians." said Joe.

" Second gear." I shouted and pushed the gear leaver on the tandem down to a lower gear.

With the low gear engaged we were able to increase speed quite quickly. As we suddenly started pulling away from the crowd of bicycles a shout went up from the Indians around us. The chase was on, the larger bikes and strongest kids stepped up their speed to keep up with us. Joe gave a quick glance behind.

" Indians catching up." said Joe

" OK top gear." I shouted and pushed the gear leaver up two stops into fifth position taking us up another two gears. We both stood up in the peddles and pushed. Slowly the gap between us and our pursuers began to widen, then it grew rapidly as we settled down to a steady rhythm and our tandem out powered even the strongest lads. Whistles and shouts were all that the Indians were left with in their defeat as we disappeared at high speed around the crescent. We left Doomwood with a certain degree of relief and a fair turn of speed.

" I think we'll find a different way back." I said as we turned into Baswatty street. " They will probably have the road dug up for us on the return trip."

We had been rather late setting out on our expedition so by the time we arrived at Fried Lemming Road it was beginning to get dark. Fried Lemming Road was a long road and as we cycled along we began to wonder if we had been mistaken about the sign for it was no where to be seen. Perhaps they had realised they had made a mistake and taken the sign down suggested Joe from the back seat, perhaps someone put up the wrong sign and they should have put up one that said Dunroaming, or the Hatchet and Octopus, or the Duck and Two Rivets.

As we rode along we speculated on the possible names that the sign should have had painted on it, suddenly the sign itself was there in the distance. It was so dark now and the letters were so faded we were almost underneath it before we could read the sign properly.

" Well there's no doubt about that." I said. " It still says The Erudite Frog."

" It does doesn't it." said Joe. " Pity really."

" Why." I said.

" Well it just seems too odd to be real somehow." said Joe.

We stood for quite a while silently looking up at the faded sign.

" Now what." said Joe.

We turned round and looked at the house standing well back from the sign, almost as if it did not want to have anything to do with a silly sign like that.

We wheeled the bicycle slowly across the area between the road and the building. It did not look like a pub it was very dark and dismal, the only light we could see was a red glow coming from the fanlight over the big oak door. As we walked toward the building it seemed to get bigger and gloomier, if that were at all possible, it was not exactly a friendly place. Joe thought it could be some kind of club, I quickly agreed on the basis that a club would not let us in so we need not hand about too long. We paced slowly up and down in front of the railings trying to see any signs of life other than that rather eerie red light filtering dimly through the stained glass fanlight.

" I suppose we ought to go in." I suggested at last.

" Well we have come all this way to see it." said Joe.

" You don't suppose the sign belongs to one of the other buildings do you." I said, mainly because the one we were standing in front of give no indication of being a any kind pub.

We wandered about looking at the nearby buildings but these were either shops or private houses. We came to the inevitable conclusion that the big mysterious house must be the Erudite Frog. The street lights came on one by one as we stood pondering and plucking up courage to go in, it was rather odd but the street lights shone in such a way that the big house stayed in complete shadow, it was all rather spooky. Slowly we crept up the first of the stone steps leading up to the front door of the house.

" So far so good." said Joe.

" There are no brass plates indicating that it is a club." I said.

We crept up to the next step. Although we were only two steps up, suddenly seemed a very long way down to street level, it also seemed to be much quieter up here, I was beginning to imagine things. We went to the next step.

" Is it me or has it really gone very quiet." whispered Joe.

" I thought it was me." I said.

In the silence someone coughed. We looked round. There was no one there. Me and Joe looked at each other, there was a cold draught from somewhere and I had a tingling in the back of my neck. Suddenly there was a thrashing and a dark shadow swept across our faces touching them with a feathery cold swish.

We were off those steps and onto our bike before you could spit sausages. I was wrestling with the gear leaver as we wobbled away when we caught sight of something, a pigeon circled into the lights of the main street turned slowly on its wings and flew away over a buildings on the opposite side of the street. We must have disturbed a sleeping pigeon and it must have flown into our faces. Our hearts were pounding like sledge hammers. Nether of us suggested that going back. It was a steady and somewhat depressing ride back into town.

The whole episode might have just been forgotten and the Erudite Frog faded into distant memory. Neither of us wanted to talk about the fact that we chickened out of entering the place because it looked and felt spooky. A few weeks later however an article appeared in the local paper and there was a large picture of the very building. Underneath the picture was a small caption. ' New owner takes over local pub, Mr Jonathan Omyknees said he hopes to make extensive improvements and so increase trade as the place had been a bit run down in recent years.'

I showed the article to Joe.

" Well they got the bit about being run down right." said Joe.

In the picture was a man standing in front of the building, this we assumed was Mr Omyknees. The article did not mention the name of the place which was hardly surprising it would put people off going. We wondered if it was the same building we been to and squinted at the picture. We both thought the bloke in the picture looked like a nice enough fellow so thought we would give it another go. I suggested it would at least kill a ghost, Joe thought we might have to kill a ghost if we entered that place, It was not exactly the sort of phrase designed to fill one with enthusiasm for the trip.

We cycled passed Apache canyon without any trouble this time. Apart from a small Scottie dog in a red tartan coat, who barked at us and thought that his legs were big enough to catch us, they weren't.

Parking the bicycle by the cast iron pole holding underneath the strange sign, we stood a while looking up at words The Erudite Frog. We looked at the old house, it did not look any different from the last time we had seen it.

" So much for big changes." said Joe.

" Perhaps they're all inside." I said hopefully.

As we approached the big steps we saw there had had been big changes, the light shinning through the fanlight was not red any more it was yellow. Not exactly fundamental changes commented Joe. We gingerly opened the big oak door and much to our surprise it did not creek.

We found ourselves standing in a large hall, we looked around like two orphans entering the giants castle. The hall was, well like any hall you get in a normal house, doors leading off, carpet on the floor, staircase at the far end, family pictures on the walls. It was all very very quiet. I began to wonder if this was the place in the photo, perhaps we had walked into someone's house. The large front door gave a clunk as it closed on its heavy spring, we both jumped about a yard in the air.

" Don't do that." said Joe.

We started to inspect everything looking for clues, Arr Ha Dr Watson I whispered in my best Sherlock Holmes accent, I spy something familiar, it was a sign on the door. I pointed to some very faded gold letters on the door to the left of the hall. It read 'Lounge Bar', on the opposite door it said Public Bar, we looked very hard at the door. They had not exactly written it so that you would notice it. But it did all seem rather old, it was probably quite bright when it was painted a hundred years ago.

Very slowly we opened the door to the public bar and looked in, it was not exactly full, if you included us two, there were two in there, as we crept into the room the dimly lit room the silence from the hall followed us. A small coal fire made the room look a little bit friendly and a large clock slowly ticked away the silence.

" Not the most popular place we've been in." whispered Joe.

" Perhaps they're not open." I whispered.

" Can I help you." A head appeared above the counter of a small bar at one side of the room.

Joe and I visibly jumped, hearts pounding too frightened to speak we just stared at the head on the bar counter. The head said he was sorry about frightening us but he was just cleaning out the pipes in the cellar. The head gradually rose up to become the top half of the man in the newspaper picture. This was the new owner and he introduced himself as Jonathan Omyknees but said everybody called him Omee. We ask if the place was open as it just seemed a bit quiet. The said they were defiantly open but it just seemed that no one wanted to come in. We told him we had passed the place before but had to admit it did not seem the friendliest of places. We told him about the article in the local paper that it said something bout making some alterations. He said he was going to, he put a couple of pints down on the counter for us, but it was such a fine old building inside it was too nice to rip apart and the planners would not let him do anything to the outside because it was a listed grade two period Elizabethan town house. Joe wondered what that listing meant. Omee said basically it meant he could not do anything to the place not even put up a few signs on the outside of it.

The result was, moaned Omee was no customers, would we believe we were the first. He gave us our drinks on the house as a kind of a celebration, I said it was not much of a celebration if we were his first customers. If he do not do something soon he said we would also have the distinction of being the last customers as well, he would have to close. We stood drinking our beer and pondering the fact.

Joe wondered if the sign out front was listed. Omee did not think it was as it was not attached to the building. Joe thought a while and wondered if perhaps he should do something to the sign as its was not very inviting, in fact Joe admitted it had really put us off coming in the first time we came.

" Repaint it." mused Omee.

" Rename it." said Joe.

" Rename it." repeated Omee in surprise.

We looked at him, would he go into a pub called The Erudite Frog. I pointed out that, just popping down to the Erudite Frog, just did not have that ring about it. A little candlelight dinner for two at The Erudite Frog, its just not there. As Omee thought about it he thought that perhaps we were right, he just I had not thought of it like that. He had thought the oddity was part of its charm.

" No." said Joe.

" No." I said when Omee looked at me.

" In that case." said Omee. " What do we call the place."

It was many weeks before we managed to find time to visit The Erudite Frog again. Joe knew someone whose brother was a sign writer and he painted a new sign for Mr Omyknees. Me and Joe did sketches and the sign writer did his best not to offend us, yet still ignore our suggestions. I saw the finished sign in his workshop before it was finally taken to be hung up. It was, how shall I put it, shall we say bright.

We parked the bicycle by the newly painted column of the new sign, this time there were a lot of other bicycles around. As we pushed open the large black door at the top of the stone steps the difference was clear, the hubbub of noise hit us straight away, talking, laughing, music. The hall was full, people were even sitting on the stairs chatting. We edged our way to the public bar which was equally full. We pushed our way to the bar.

" Hello can I get you something." this was said by a head just appearing from above the bar. " I was just changing the pipes." it was Mr Omyknees. " Why hello it's you two." he said.

" Well its certainly a lot busier than last time." I pointed out.

" Can't believe it." said Omee. " Different world."

" You won't be wanting our little bit of trade then." said Joe.

" For you two its free drinks forever." said Omee. " If it wasn't for you I would have had to sell up."

To say the least it was a good evening, we had been basking in glory as Mr Omyknees insisted on telling everyone about our involvement in the new sign. Many times we told the story about the sign and many a pint we had while doing so, until it was time to go home.

" It's amazing the power of publicity." I said to Joe when we finally pulled ourselves away from the bar.

It was a pity that the only pub where we could get free drinks was a five mile cycle ride away in the middle of a place we never had reason to go. As we put our bicycle clips on we looked up at the newly painted sign now lit up above us.

" Its amazing what a new name can do." said Joe.

" And the pretty picture." I said. " It must be the longest name in pub history."

" It wouldn't have been so long if we could have all agreed on just one name." said Joe.

" It worked though." I said.

" Yes it worked." agreed Joe missing his leg with the bicycle clip.

As we got on our bicycle for a slightly unsteady ride home, I read the name for the last time.

' The Dancing Cow and the Green Rivet Mender '.

" What." said Joe, as we started to wobble off through the twilight. " Is a green rivet mender."