able to tell my friends
that once I had driven a motor-car!'

The driver laughed at the proposal, so heartily that the gentleman
inquired what the matter was. When he heard, he said, to Toad's delight,
'Bravo, ma'am! I like your spirit. Let her have a try, and look after
her. She won't do any harm.'

Toad eagerly scrambled into the seat vacated by the driver, took the
steering-wheel in his hands, listened with affected humility to the
instructions given him, and set the car in motion, but very slowly and
carefully at first, for he was determined to be prudent.

The gentlemen behind clapped their hands and applauded, and Toad heard
them saying, 'How well she does it! Fancy a washerwoman driving a car as
well as that, the first time!'

Toad went a little faster; then faster still, and faster.

He heard the gentlemen call out warningly, 'Be careful, washerwoman!'
And this annoyed him, and he began to lose his head.

The driver tried to interfere, but he pinned him down in his seat with
one elbow, and put on full speed. The rush of air in his face, the hum
of the engines, and the light jump of the car beneath him intoxicated
his weak brain. 'Washerwoman, indeed!' he shouted recklessly. 'Ho! ho!
I am the Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the prison-breaker, the Toad who
always escapes! Sit still, and you shall know what driving really
is, for you are in the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely
fearless Toad!'

With a cry of horror the whole party rose and flung themselves on him.
'Seize him!' they cried, 'seize the Toad, the wicked animal who
stole our motor-car! Bind him, chain him, drag him to the nearest
police-station! Down with the desperate and dangerous Toad!'

Alas! they should have thought, they ought to have been more prudent,
they should have remembered to stop the motor-car somehow before playing
any pranks of that sort. With a half-turn of the wheel the Toad sent
the car crashing through the low hedge that ran along the roadside. One
mighty bound, a violent shock, and the wheels of the car were churning
up the thick mud of a horse-pond.

Toad found himself flying through the air with the strong upward rush
and delicate curve of a swallow. He liked the motion, and was just
beginning to wonder whether it would go on until he developed wings and
turned into a Toad-bird, when he landed on his back with a thump, in the
soft rich grass of a meadow. Sitting up, he could just see the motor-car
in the p