There was a long, long pause. Toad looked desperately this way and that, while the other animals waited in grave silence. At last he spoke.
“No!” he said, a little sullenly, but stoutly; “I’m not sorry. And it wasn’t folly at all! It was simply glorious!”
“What?” cried the Badger, greatly scandalised. “You backsliding animal, didn’t you tell me just now, in there—”
“Oh, yes, yes, in there,” said Toad impatiently. “I’d have said anything in there. You’re so eloquent, dear Badger, and so moving, and so convincing, and put all your points so frightfully well—you can do what you like with me in there, and you know it. But I’ve been searching my mind since, and going over things in it, and I find that I’m not a bit sorry or repentant really, so it’s no earthly good saying I am; now, is it?”
“Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to touch a motorcar again?”
“Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, I faithfully promise that the very first motorcar I see, poop-poop! off I go in it!”
“Told you so, didn’t I?” observed the Rat to the Mole.
“Very well, then,” said the Badger firmly, rising to his feet. “Since you won’t yield to persuasion, we’ll try what force can do. I feared it would come to this all along. You’ve often asked us three to come and stay with you, Toad, in this handsome house of yours; well, now we’re going to. When we’ve converted you to a proper point of view we may quit, but not before. Take him upstairs, you two, and lock him up in his bedroom, while we arrange matters between ourselves.”
“It’s for your own good, Toady, you know,” said the Rat kindly, as Toad, kicking and struggling, was hauled up the stairs by his two faithful friends. “Think what fun we shall all have together, just as we used to, when you’ve quite got over this—this painful attack of yours!”
“We’ll take great care of everything for you till you’re well, Toad,” said the Mole; “and we’ll see your money isn’t wasted, as it has been.”
“No more of those regrettable incidents with the police, Toad,” said the Rat, as they thrust him into his bedroom.
“And no more weeks in hospital, being ordered about by female nurses, Toad,” added the Mole, turning the key on him.
They descended the stair, Toad shouting abuse at them through the keyhole; and the three friends then met in conference on the situation.
“It’s going to be a tedious business,” said the Badger, sighing. “I’ve never seen Toad so determined. However, we will see it out. He must never be left an instant unguarded. We shall have to take it in turns to be with him, till the poison has worked itself out of his system.”
They arranged watches accordingly. Each animal took it in turns to sleep in Toad’s room at night, and they divided the day up between them. At first Toad was undoubtedly very trying to his careful guardians. When his violent paroxysms possessed him he would arrange bedroom chairs in rude resemblance of a motorcar and would crouch on the foremost of them, bent forward and staring fixedly ahead, making uncouth and ghastly noises, till the climax was reached, when, turning a complete somersault, he would lie prostrate amidst the ruins of the chairs, apparently completely satisfied for the moment. As time passed, however, these painful seizures grew gradually less frequent, and his friends strove to divert his mind into fresh channels. But his interest in other matters did not seem to revive, and he grew apparently languid and depressed.
One fine morning the Rat, whose turn it was to go on duty, went upstairs to relieve Badger, whom he found fidgeting to be off and stretch his legs in a long ramble round his wood and down his earths and burrows. “Toad’s still in bed,” he told the Rat, outside the door. “Can’t get much out of him, except, ‘O leave him alone, he wants nothing, perhaps he’ll be better presently, it may pass off in time, don’t be unduly anxious,’ and so on. Now, you look out, Rat! When Toad’s quiet and submissive, and playing at being the hero of a Sunday-school prize, then he’s at his artfullest. There’s sure to be something up. I know him. Well, now, I must be off.”
“How are you today, old chap?” inquired the Rat cheerfully, as he approached Toad’s bedside.
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 bother to 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
