Rat was on the
alert, and promptly followed him down the tunnel to which his unerring
nose had faithfully led him.

It was close and airless, and the earthy smell was strong, and it
seemed a long time to Rat ere the passage ended and he could stand
erect and stretch and shake himself. The Mole struck a match, and by
its light the Rat saw that they were standing in an open space, neatly
swept and sanded underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole's little
front door, with "Mole End" painted, in Gothic lettering, over the
bell-pull at the side.

Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wall and lit it, and the
Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A
garden-seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller;
for the Mole, who was a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having
his ground kicked up by other animals into little runs that ended in
earth-heaps. On the walls hung wire baskets with ferns in them,
alternating with brackets carrying plaster statuary--Garibaldi, and the
infant Samuel, and Queen Victoria, and other heroes of modern Italy.
Down on one side of the fore-court ran a skittle-alley, with benches
along it and little wooden tables marked with rings that hinted at
beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round pond containing gold-fish and
surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of the centre of the pond rose
a fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells and topped by a large
silvered glass ball that reflected everything all wrong and had a very
pleasing effect.

Mole's face beamed at the sight of all these objects so dear to him,
and he hurried Rat through the door, lit a lamp in the hall, and took
one glance round his old home. He saw the dust lying thick on
everything, saw the cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected
house, and its narrow, meagre dimensions, its worn and shabby
contents--and collapsed again on a hall-chair, his nose to his paws.
"O Ratty!" he cried dismally, "why ever did I do it? Why did I bring
you to this poor, cold little place, on a night like this, when you
might have been at River Bank by this time, toasting your toes before
a blazing fire, with all your own nice things about you!"

The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running
here and there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and
lighting lamps and candles and sticking them up everywhere. "What a
capital little house this is!" he cal