“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 light-heartedly, whistling a merry tune.