he had unluckily seen Kapchack do something. He dared not say what it
was, because if he did he had no doubt he would be immediately put to
death, and although life in the tree was no more than a living death,
still it was life, and he had this consolation, that through being
debarred from all exercise and work, and compelled to exist without
eating or drinking, notwithstanding the time passed and the years went
by, still he did not grow any older. He was as young now as when he was
first put into the dungeon, and if he could once get out, he felt that
he should soon recover the use of his limbs, and should crawl about and
enjoy himself when his grandson who lived in the rhubarb patch, and who
was already very old and warty, was dead.

Indeed by being thus shut up he should survive every other toad, and he
hoped some day to get out, because although he had been condemned to
imprisonment till the end of the world, that was only Kapchack's
vainglorious way of pronouncing sentence, as if his (Kapchack's)
authority was going to endure for ever, which was quite contrary to
history and the teachings of philosophy. So far from that he did not
believe himself that Kapchack's dynasty was fated to endure very long,
for since he had been a prisoner immured in the earth, he had heard many
strange things whispered along underground, and among them a saying
about Kapchack. Besides which he knew that the elm-tree could not exist
for ever; already there was a crack in it, which in time would split
farther up; the elm had reached its prime, and was beginning to decay
within. By-and-by it would be blown over, and then the farmer would have
the butt grubbed up, and split for firewood, and he should escape. It
was true it might be many years hence, perhaps a century, but that did
not matter in the least--time was nothing to him now--and he knew he
should emerge as young as when he went in.

This was the reason why he so carefully kept the secret of what he had
seen, so as to preserve his life; nor could the fox by any persuasion
prevail upon him to disclose the matter.

"But at least," said the fox, "at least tell me the saying you have
heard underground about King Kapchack."

"I am afraid to do so," said the toad; "for having already suffered so
much I dread the infliction of further misery."

"If you will tell me," said the fox, "I will do my very best to get you
out. I will keep putting in wedges till the tree splits wide open, so