.

"There is one thing I don't understand yet," said Peter, "and that is where
you go to to sleep all winter. Do you go down into the mud at the bottom of
the Smiling Pool the way Grandfather Frog does?"

"Certainly not!" retorted Old Mr. Toad. "Use your common sense, Peter
Rabbit. If I had spent the winter in the Smiling Pool, do you suppose I
would have left it to come way up here and then have turned right around
and gone back there to sing? I'm not so fond of long journeys as all that."

"That's so." Peter looked foolish. "I didn't think of that when I spoke."

"The trouble with you, and with a lot of other people, is that you speak
first and do your thinking afterward, when you do any thinking at all,"
grunted Old Mr. Toad. "Now if I wanted to, I could disappear right here."

"You mean that you would hide under that old board just as you did before,"
said Peter, with a very wise look.

"Nothing of the sort!" snapped Old Mr. Toad. "I could disappear and not go
near that old board, not a step nearer than I am now."

Peter looked in all directions carefully, but not a thing could he see
under which Old Mr. Toad could possibly hide except the old board, and he
had said he wouldn't hide under that. "I don't like to doubt your word,
Mr. Toad," said he, "but you'll have to show me before I can believe that."

Old Mr. Toad's eyes twinkled. Here was a chance to get even with Peter for
watching him change his suit. "If you'll turn your back to me and look
straight down the Crooked Little Path for five minutes, I'll disappear,"
said he. "More than that, I give you my word of honor that I will not hop
three feet from where I am sitting."

"All right," replied Peter promptly, turning his back to Old Mr. Toad.
"I'll look down the Crooked Little Path for five minutes and promise not to
peek."

So Peter sat and gazed straight down the Crooked Little Path. It was a
great temptation to roll his eyes back and peep behind him, but he had
given his word that he wouldn't, and he didn't. When he thought the five
minutes were up, he turned around. Old Mr. Toad was nowhere to be seen.
Peter looked hastily this way and that way, but there was not a sign of Old
Mr. Toad. He had disappeared as completely as if he never had been there.

XV

OLD MR. TOAD GIVES PETER A SCARE

If you play pranks on other folks
You may be sure that they
Will take the first chance that they get
A joke on you to play.

Old Mr. To