d, and the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features.
'You have conquered, my friends,' he said in broken accents. 'It was,
to be sure, but a small thing that I asked--merely leave to blossom
and expand for yet one more evening, to let myself go and hear the
tumultuous applause that always seems to me--somehow--to bring out my
best qualities. However, you are right, I know, and I am wrong. Hence
forth I will be a very different Toad. My friends, you shall never have
occasion to blush for me again. But, O dear, O dear, this is a hard
world!'

And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with
faltering footsteps.

'Badger,' said the Rat, '_I_ feel like a brute; I wonder what YOU feel
like?'

'O, I know, I know,' said the Badger gloomily. 'But the thing had to be
done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and be
respected. Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and jeered
at by stoats and weasels?'

'Of course not,' said the Rat. 'And, talking of weasels, it's lucky we
came upon that little weasel, just as he was setting out with Toad's
invitations. I suspected something from what you told me, and had a look
at one or two; they were simply disgraceful. I confiscated the lot,
and the good Mole is now sitting in the blue boudoir, filling up plain,
simple invitation cards.'

* * * * *

At last the hour for the banquet began to draw near, and Toad, who on
leaving the others had retired to his bedroom, was still sitting there,
melancholy and thoughtful. His brow resting on his paw, he pondered long
and deeply. Gradually his countenance cleared, and he began to smile
long, slow smiles. Then he took to giggling in a shy, self-conscious
manner. At last he got up, locked the door, drew the curtains across
the windows, collected all the chairs in the room and arranged them in a
semicircle, and took up his position in front of them, swelling visibly.
Then he bowed, coughed twice, and, letting himself go, with uplifted
voice he sang, to the enraptured audience that his imagination so
clearly saw.

TOAD'S LAST LITTLE SONG!

The Toad--came--home!
There was panic in the parlours and howling in the halls,
There was crying in the cow-sheds and shrieking in the stalls,
When the Toad--came--home!

When the Toad--came--home!
There was smashing in of window and crashing in of door,
There was chivvying of weasels that fainted on th