He had to wait some minutes for an answer. At last a feeble voice replied, `Thank you so much, dear Ratty! So good of you to inquire! But first tell me how you are yourself, and the excellent Mole?'
`O, WE'RE all right,' replied the Rat. `Mole,' he added incautiously, `is going out for a run round with Badger. They'll be out till luncheon time, so you and I will spend a pleasant morning together, and I'll do my best to amuse you. Now jump up, there's a good fellow, and don't lie moping there on a fine morning like this!'
`Dear, kind Rat,' murmured Toad, `how little you realise my condition, and how very far I am from "jumping up" now--if ever! But do not trouble about me. I hate being a burden to my friends, and I do not expect to be one much longer. Indeed, I almost hope not.'
`Well, I hope not, too,' said the Rat heartily. `You've been a fine botherto us all this time, and I'm glad to hear it's going to stop. And in weather like this, and the boating season just beginning! It's too bad of you, Toad! It isn't the trouble we mind, but you're making us miss such an awful lot.'
`I'm afraid it IS the trouble you mind, though,' replied the Toad languidly. `I can quite understand it. It's natural enough. You're tired of bothering about me. I mustn't ask you to do anything further. I'm a nuisance, I know.'
`You are, indeed,' said the Rat. `But I tell you, I'd take any trouble on earth for you, if only you'd be a sensible animal.'
`If I thought that, Ratty,' murmured Toad, more feebly than ever, `then I would beg you--for the last time, probably--to step round to the village as quickly as possible--even now it may be too late--and fetch the doctor. But don't you bother. It's only a trouble, and perhaps we may as well let things take their course.'
`Why, what do you want a doctor for?' inquired the Rat, coming closer and examining him. He certainly lay very still and flat, and his voice was weaker and his manner much changed.
`Surely you have noticed of late----' murmured Toad. `But, no-- why should you? Noticing things is only a trouble. To-morrow, indeed, you may be saying to yourself, "O, if only I had noticed sooner! If only I had done something!" But no; it's a trouble. Never mind--forget that I asked.'
`Look here, old man,' said the Rat, beginning to get rather alarmed, `of course I'll fetch a doctor to you, if you really think you want him. But you can hardly be bad enough for that yet. Let's talk about something else.'
`I fear, dear friend,' said Toad, with a sad smile, `that "talk" can do little in a case like this--or doctors either, for that matter; still, one must grasp at the slightest straw. And, by the way--while you are about it--I HATE to give you additional trouble, but I happen to remember that you will pass the door-- would you mind at the same time asking the lawyer to step up? It would be a convenience to me, and there are moments--perhaps I should say there is A moment--when one must face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to exhausted nature!'
`A lawyer! O, he must be really bad!' the affrighted Rat said to himself, as he hurried from the room, not forgetting, however, to lock the doorcarefully behind him.
Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he had no one to consult.
`It's best to be on the safe side,' he said, on reflection. `I've known Toad fancy himself frightfully bad before, without the slightest reason; but I've never heard him ask for a lawyer! If there's nothing really the matter, the doctor will tell him he's an old ass, and cheer him up; and that will be something gained. I'd better humour him and go; it won't take very long.' So he ran off to the village on his errand of mercy.
The Toad, who had hopped lightly out of bed as soon as he heard the key turned in the lock, watched him eagerly from the window till he disappeared down the carriage-drive. Then, laughing heartily, he dressed as quickly as possible in the smartest suit he could lay hands on at the moment, filled his pockets with cash which he took from a small drawer in the dressing-table, and next, knotting the sheets from his bed together and tying one end of the improvised rope round the central mullion of the handsome Tudor window which formed such a feature of his bedroom, he scrambled out, slid lightly to the ground, and, taking the opposite direction to the Rat, marched off lightheartedly, whistling a merry tune.
It was a gloomy luncheon for Rat when the Badger and the Mole at length returned, and he had to face them at table with his pitiful and unconvincing story. The Badger's caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be imagined, and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even the Mole, though he took his friend's side as far as possible, could not help saying, `You've been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty! Toad, too, of all animals!'
`He did it awfully well,' said the crestfallen Rat.
`He did YOU awfully well!' rejoined the Badger hotly. `However, talking won't mend matters. He's got clear away for the time, that's certain; and the worst of it is, he'll be so conceited with what he'll think is his cleverness that he may commit any folly. One comfort is, we're free now, and needn't waste any more of our precious time doing sentry-go. But we'd better continue to sleep at Toad Hall for a while longer. Toad may be brought back at any moment--on a stretcher, or between two policemen.'
So spoke the Badger, not knowing what the future held in store, or how much water, and of how turbid a character, was to run under bridges before Toad should sit at ease again in his ancestral Hall.
Meanwhile, Toad, gay and irresponsible, was walking briskly along the high road, some miles from home. At first he had taken by- paths, and crossed many fields, and changed his course several times, in case of pursuit; but now, feeling by this time safe from recapture, and the sun smiling brightly on him, and all Nature joining in a chorus of approval to the song of self-praise that his own heart was singing to him, he almost danced along the road in his satisfaction and conceit.
