I am to you for consenting to come on this trip! I wouldn't
have gone without you, and then I might never have seen that--that
swan, that sunbeam, that thunderbolt! I might never have heard that
entrancing sound, or smelt that bewitching smell! I owe it all to you,
my best of friends!"

[Illustration: _"Come on!" he said. "We shall just have to walk it"_]

The Rat turned from him in despair. "You see what it is?" he said
to the Mole, addressing him across Toad's head: "He's quite hopeless.
I give it up--when we get to the town we'll go to the railway station,
and with luck we may pick up a train there that'll get us back to
river bank to-night. And if ever you catch me going a-pleasuring with
this provoking animal again!"--He snorted, and during the rest of that
weary trudge addressed his remarks exclusively to Mole.

On reaching the town they went straight to the station and deposited
Toad in the second-class waiting-room, giving a porter twopence to
keep a strict eye on him. They then left the horse at an inn stable,
and gave what directions they could about the cart and its contents.
Eventually, a slow train having landed them at a station not very far
from Toad Hall, they escorted the spellbound, sleep-walking Toad to
his door, put him inside it, and instructed his housekeeper to feed
him, undress him, and put him to bed. Then they got out their boat
from the boat-house, sculled down the river home, and at a very late
hour sat down to supper in their own cosy riverside parlour, to the
Rat's great joy and contentment.

The following evening the Mole, who had risen late and taken things
very easy all day, was sitting on the bank fishing, when the Rat, who
had been looking up his friends and gossiping, came strolling along to
find him. "Heard the news?" he said. "There's nothing else being
talked about, all along the river bank. Toad went up to Town by an
early train this morning. And he has ordered a large and very
expensive motor-car."

III

THE WILD WOOD

The Mole had long wanted to make the acquaintance of the Badger. He
seemed, by all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though
rarely visible, to make his unseen influence felt by everybody about
the place. But whenever the Mole mentioned his wish to the Water Rat,
he always found himself put off. "It's all right," the Rat would say.
"Badger'll turn up some day or other--he's always turning up--and then
I'll introduce you. The best of f