The Wind in the Willows: Toad's Further Adventures

Toad woke up in his hollow tree, cold but cheerful, and set off to find his way home.Beside a canal he met a big woman on a barge, which was pulled along by a horse.“I’m going near Toad Hall,” she said. “You can ride with me, if you do my washing on the way.”

Toad had never washed anything in his life, and soon the clothes were a soapy, wet mess.The barge-woman laughed loudly. “You’re no washerwoman,” she said. “You’re a nasty, crawly toad!”Toad shouted rude words at her, so she picked him up by one leg and threw him into the canal.

Angry and wet, Toad swam to the bank, jumped on the barge-horse, and galloped away.Soon he met a man cooking a delicious stew beside his caravan, and Toad sold him the horse for six shillings and sixpence and a big breakfast.With a full stomach and money in his pocket, Toad marched along, singing a very proud song about himself.

Then a motor-car came along the road, and Toad turned pale: it was the very car he had stolen from the Red Lion!He fell down in the road, but the kind gentlemen in the car thought he was a poor washerwoman who had fainted.They lifted Toad gently into the car, and soon he asked in a weak voice if he could sit in front, beside the driver.

Then he asked to drive, and the gentlemen laughed and said, “Let her try!”Toad drove slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he shouted, “I am Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the Toad who always escapes!”The gentlemen jumped up to catch him, and the car crashed through a hedge into a muddy pond.

Toad flew through the air, landed softly in the grass, and ran away across the fields as fast as he could.But the driver and two policemen chased him, and Toad ran straight over the edge of a river bank and fell into deep water.The river carried him to a dark hole in the bank, and a friendly brown face looked out at him. It was the Water Rat!