and
clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing,
simple--passionate--perfect--"

"Well, let's have it, then," said the Mole, after he had waited
patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a
smile of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look
still lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.

VIII

TOAD'S ADVENTURES

When Toad found himself immured in a dank and noisome dungeon, and
knew that all the grim darkness of a medieval fortress lay between him
and the outer world of sunshine and well-metalled high roads where he
had lately been so happy, disporting himself as if he had bought up
every road in England, he flung himself at full length on the floor,
and shed bitter tears, and abandoned himself to dark despair. "This is
the end of everything" (he said), "at least it is the end of the
career of Toad, which is the same thing; the popular and handsome
Toad, the rich and hospitable Toad, the Toad so free and careless and
debonair! How can I hope to be ever set at large again" (he said),
"who have been imprisoned so justly for stealing so handsome a
motor-car in such an audacious manner, and for such lurid and
imaginative cheek, bestowed upon such a number of fat, red-faced
policemen!" (Here his sobs choked him.) "Stupid animal that I was" (he
said), "now I must languish in this dungeon, till people who were
proud to say they knew me, have forgotten the very name of Toad! O
wise old Badger!" (he said), "O clever, intelligent Rat and sensible
Mole! What sound judgments, what a knowledge of men and matters you
possess! O unhappy and forsaken Toad!" With lamentations such as these
he passed his days and nights for several weeks, refusing his meals or
intermediate light refreshments, though the grim and ancient gaoler,
knowing that Toad's pockets were well lined, frequently pointed out
that many comforts, and indeed luxuries, could by arrangement be sent
in--at a price--from outside.

Now the gaoler had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted, who
assisted her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was
particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung
on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great
annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was
shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept
several p