of
rotten letters on a jolly morning like this, when I want to go around my
property, and set everything and everybody to rights, and swagger about
and enjoy myself! Certainly not! I'll be--I'll see you----Stop a minute,
though! Why, of course, dear Badger! What is my pleasure or convenience
compared with that of others! You wish it done, and it shall be done.
Go, Badger, order the Banquet, order what you like; then join our young
friends outside in their innocent mirth, oblivious of me and my cares
and toils. I sacrifice this fair morning on the altar of duty and
friendship!'

The Badger looked at him very suspiciously, but Toad's frank, open
countenance made it difficult to suggest any unworthy motive in this
change of attitude. He quitted the room, accordingly, in the direction
of the kitchen, and as soon as the door had closed behind him, Toad
hurried to the writing-table. A fine idea had occurred to him while he
was talking. He WOULD write the invitations; and he would take care to
mention the leading part he had taken in the fight, and how he had laid
the Chief Weasel flat; and he would hint at his adventures, and what a
career of triumph he had to tell about; and on the fly-leaf he would set
out a sort of a programme of entertainment for the evening--something
like this, as he sketched it out in his head:--

SPEECH. . . . BY TOAD.
(There will be other speeches by TOAD during the evening.)

ADDRESS. . . BY TOAD

SYNOPSIS--Our Prison System--the Waterways of Old
England--Horse-dealing, and how to deal--Property,
its rights and its duties--Back to the Land--
A Typical English Squire.

SONG. . . . BY TOAD. (Composed by himself.)

OTHER COMPOSITIONS. BY TOAD
will be sung in the course of the evening
by the. . . COMPOSER.

The idea pleased him mightily, and he worked very hard and got all the
letters finished by noon, at which hour it was reported to him that
there was a small and rather bedraggled weasel at the door, inquiring
timidly whether he could be of any service to the gentlemen. Toad
swaggered out and found it was one of the prisoners of the previous
evening, very respectful and anxious to please. He patted him on the
head, shoved the bundle of invitations into his paw, and told him to
cut along quick and deliver them as fast as he could, and if he liked
to come back again in the evening, perhaps there might be a shilling
for him, or, again, perhaps there mightn't; and the