As soon as the meal was over, Toad thrust his paws deep into his trouser-pockets, remarked casually, “Well, look after yourselves, you fellows! Ask for anything you want!” and was swaggering off in the direction of the garden, where he wanted to think out an idea or two for his coming speeches, when the Rat caught him by the arm.
Toad rather suspected what he was after, and did his best to get away; but when the Badger took him firmly by the other arm he began to see that the game was up. The two animals conducted him between them into the small smoking-room that opened out of the entrance-hall, shut the door, and put him into a chair. Then they both stood in front of him, while Toad sat silent and regarded them with much suspicion and ill-humour.
“Now, look here, Toad,” said the Rat. “It’s about this Banquet, and very sorry I am to have to speak to you like this. But we want you to understand clearly, once and for all, that there are going to be no speeches and no songs. Try and grasp the fact that on this occasion we’re not arguing with you; we’re just telling you.”
Toad saw that he was trapped. They understood him, they saw through him, they had got ahead of him. His pleasant dream was shattered.
“Mayn’t I sing them just one little song?” he pleaded piteously.
“No, not one little song,” replied the Rat firmly, though his heart bled as he noticed the trembling lip of the poor disappointed Toad. “It’s no good, Toady; you know well that your songs are all conceit and boasting and vanity; and your speeches are all self-praise and—and—well, and gross exaggeration and—and—”
“And gas,” put in the Badger, in his common way.
“It’s for your own good, Toady,” went on the Rat. “You know you must turn over a new leaf sooner or later, and now seems a splendid time to begin; a sort of turning-point in your career. Please don’t think that saying all this doesn’t hurt me more than it hurts you.”
Toad remained a long while plunged in thought. At last he raised his head, and the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features. “You have conquered, my friends,” he said in broken accents. “It was, to be sure, but a small thing that I asked—merely leave to blossom and expand for yet one more evening, to let myself go and hear the tumultuous applause that always seems to me—somehow—to bring out my best qualities. However, you are right, I know, and I am wrong. Henceforth I will be a very different Toad. My friends, you shall never have occasion to blush for me again. But, O dear, O dear, this is a hard world!”
And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with faltering footsteps.
“Badger,” said the Rat, “I feel like a brute; I wonder what you feel like?”
“O, I know, I know,” said the Badger gloomily. “But the thing had to be done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and be respected. Would you have him a common laughingstock, mocked and jeered at by stoats and weasels?”
“Of course not,” said the Rat. “And, talking of weasels, it’s lucky we came upon that little weasel, just as he was setting out with Toad’s invitations. I suspected something from what you told me, and had a look at one or two; they were simply disgraceful. I confiscated the lot, and the good Mole is now sitting in the blue boudoir, filling up plain, simple invitation cards.”
At last the hour for the banquet began to draw near, and Toad, who on leaving the others had retired to his bedroom, was still sitting there, melancholy and thoughtful. His brow resting on his paw, he pondered long and deeply. Gradually his countenance cleared, and he began to smile long, slow smiles. Then he took to giggling in a shy, self-conscious manner. At last he got up, locked the door, drew the curtains across the windows, collected all the chairs in the room and arranged them in a semicircle, and took up his position in front of them, swelling visibly. Then he bowed, coughed twice, and, letting himself go, with uplifted voice he sang, to the enraptured audience that his imagination so clearly saw:
Toad’s Last Little Song
The Toad—came—home!
There was panic in the parlours and howling in the halls,
There was crying in the cowsheds and shrieking in the stalls,
When the Toad—came—home!When the Toad—came—home!
There was smashing in of window and crashing in of door,
There was chivvying of weasels that fainted on the floor,
When the Toad—came—home!Bang! go the drums!
The trumpeters are tooting and the soldiers are saluting,
And the cannon they are shooting and the motorcars are hooting,
As the—Hero—comes!Shout—Hoo-ray!
And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud,
In honour of an animal of whom you’re justly proud,
For it’s Toad’s—great—day!
He sang this very loud, with great unction and expression; and when he had done, he sang it all over again.
Then he heaved a deep sigh; a long, long, long sigh.
Then he dipped his hairbrush in the water-jug, parted his hair in the middle, and plastered it down very straight and sleek on each side of his face; and, unlocking the door, went quietly down the stairs to greet his guests, who he knew must be assembling in the drawing-room.
All the animals cheered when he entered, and crowded round to congratulate him and say nice things about his courage, and his cleverness, and his fighting qualities; but Toad only smiled faintly, and murmured, “Not at all!” Or, sometimes, for a change, “On the contrary!” Otter, who was standing on the hearthrug, describing to an admiring circle of friends exactly how he would have managed things had he been there, came forward with a shout, threw his
