Toad and Verklärung - Elgar and the Toad

On 8th October 1916, Alice Elgar wrote in her diaries:

"Mr Blackwood.... met E coming up from Finchley Road with a toad in his pocket. E had bought it off some boys for 2p. He did not think it was happy with them. He put it in the garden and calls it Algernon...He puts his head out of the window and says "Do you think he will come out if I make a noise like a worm ?" Algernon invisible."

Lewis Foreman, in Oh my horses, Elgar and the First World War, quipped "The local press was unable to resist the story under the headline Toad and Verklärung'"