tion, 'I suppose any fool can WASH!'

He fetched tub, soap, and other necessaries from the cabin, selected a
few garments at random, tried to recollect what he had seen in casual
glances through laundry windows, and set to.

A long half-hour passed, and every minute of it saw Toad getting crosser
and crosser. Nothing that he could do to the things seemed to please
them or do them good. He tried coaxing, he tried slapping, he tried
punching; they smiled back at him out of the tub unconverted, happy in
their original sin. Once or twice he looked nervously over his shoulder
at the barge-woman, but she appeared to be gazing out in front of her,
absorbed in her steering. His back ached badly, and he noticed with
dismay that his paws were beginning to get all crinkly. Now Toad was
very proud of his paws. He muttered under his breath words that should
never pass the lips of either washerwomen or Toads; and lost the soap,
for the fiftieth time.

A burst of laughter made him straighten himself and look round. The
barge-woman was leaning back and laughing unrestrainedly, till the tears
ran down her cheeks.

'I've been watching you all the time,' she gasped. 'I thought you
must be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. Pretty
washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your life,
I'll lay!'

Toad's temper which had been simmering viciously for some time, now
fairly boiled over, and he lost all control of himself.

'You common, low, FAT barge-woman!' he shouted; 'don't you dare to talk
to your betters like that! Washerwoman indeed! I would have you to know
that I am a Toad, a very well-known, respected, distinguished Toad! I
may be under a bit of a cloud at present, but I will NOT be laughed at
by a bargewoman!'

The woman moved nearer to him and peered under his bonnet keenly and
closely. 'Why, so you are!' she cried. 'Well, I never! A horrid, nasty,
crawly Toad! And in my nice clean barge, too! Now that is a thing that I
will NOT have.'

She relinquished the tiller for a moment. One big mottled arm shot out
and caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other-gripped him fast by a
hind-leg. Then the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge seemed
to flit lightly across the sky, the wind whistled in his ears, and Toad
found himself flying through the air, revolving rapidly as he went.

The water, when he eventually reached it with a loud splash, proved
quite cold enough for his taste, thou