est, but he was a fat animal, and his
legs were short, and still they gained. He could hear them close
behind him now. Ceasing to heed where he was going, he struggled on
blindly and wildly, looking back over his shoulder at the now
triumphant enemy, when suddenly the earth failed under his feet, he
grasped at the air, and, splash! he found himself head over ears in
deep water, rapid water, water that bore him along with a force he
could not contend with; and he knew that in his blind panic he had run
straight into the river!

He rose to the surface and tried to grasp the reeds and the rushes
that grew along the water's edge close under the bank, but the stream
was so strong that it tore them out of his hands. "O my!" gasped poor
Toad, "if ever I steal a motor-car again! If ever I sing another
conceited song"--then down he went, and came up breathless and
spluttering. Presently he saw that he was approaching a big dark hole
in the bank, just above his head, and as the stream bore him past he
reached up with a paw and caught hold of the edge and held on. Then
slowly and with difficulty he drew himself up out of the water, till
at last he was able to rest his elbows on the edge of the hole. There
he remained for some minutes, puffing and panting, for he was quite
exhausted.

As he sighed and blew and stared before him into the dark hole, some
bright small thing shone and twinkled in its depths, moving towards
him. As it approached, a face grew up gradually around it, and it was
a familiar face!

Brown and small, with whiskers.

Grave and round, with neat ears and silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

XI

"LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS"

The Rat put out a neat little brown paw, gripped Toad firmly by the
scruff of the neck, and gave a great hoist and a pull; and the
water-logged Toad came up slowly but surely over the edge of the hole,
till at last he stood safe and sound in the hall, streaked with mud
and weed, to be sure, and with the water streaming off him, but happy
and high-spirited as of old, now that he found himself once more in
the house of a friend, and dodgings and evasions were over, and he
could lay aside a disguise that was unworthy of his position and
wanted such a lot of living up to.

"O, Ratty!" he cried. "I've been through such times since I saw you
last, you can't think! Such trials, such sufferings, and all so nobly
borne! Then such escapes, such disguises, such subterfuges, a