alert, and promptly followed him down the tunnel to which his unerring
nose had faithfully led him.

It was close and airless, and the earthy smell was strong, and it seemed
a long time to Rat ere the passage ended and he could stand erect and
stretch and shake himself. The Mole struck a match, and by its light
the Rat saw that they were standing in an open space, neatly swept and
sanded underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole's little front door,
with 'Mole End' painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell-pull at the
side.

Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wail and lit it, and the
Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A
garden-seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller;
for the Mole, who was a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having
his ground kicked up by other animals into little runs that ended
in earth-heaps. On the walls hung wire baskets with ferns in them,
alternating with brackets carrying plaster statuary--Garibaldi, and the
infant Samuel, and Queen Victoria, and other heroes of modern Italy.
Down on one side of the forecourt ran a skittle-alley, with benches
along it and little wooden tables marked with rings that hinted at
beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round pond containing gold-fish and
surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of the centre of the pond rose
a fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells and topped by a large
silvered glass ball that reflected everything all wrong and had a very
pleasing effect.

Mole's face-beamed at the sight of all these objects so dear to him, and
he hurried Rat through the door, lit a lamp in the hall, and took one
glance round his old home. He saw the dust lying thick on everything,
saw the cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected house, and its
narrow, meagre dimensions, its worn and shabby contents--and collapsed
again on a hall-chair, his nose to his paws. 'O Ratty!' he cried
dismally, 'why ever did I do it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold
little place, on a night like this, when you might have been at River
Bank by this time, toasting your toes before a blazing fire, with all
your own nice things about you!'

The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running here
and there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and lighting
lamps and candles and sticking them, up everywhere. 'What a capital
little house this is!' he called out cheerily.