Toad in a hole
AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, cleaning up his little home at Number Eleven Downing Street after the jolly house- warming party the night before. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, washing down the walls and scraping the Cabinet Pudding off the ceiling until he was finally so exhausted that he sud- denly flung dowd his brush on the floor and said 'Bother!' and '0 blow!' and started reading his book about Mr Asquith to cheer himself up. Just as he was sitting there, and dreaming about the sini-dappled days that lay ahead, he heard a funny little snoring sound, and there, right at the end of a long dark tunnel beneath the heap othroken furniture, he thought he saw the glint of.a;glazed eye' nd a little snout twitching. 'Oh good gracious me!' said a little high- pitched voice, 'Oh my poor head!' And then with a scraping and a scrabbling and a scratch- ing and a scrooging the little snout began to work its way towards the light, with little paws working busily, and the little voice murmuring to itself, 'Out we go, out we go!' till at last, pop! the little snout came out and looked round broken Sofa straight at Mole. It was a little dishevelled, furry creature, blinking uncertainly and hardly able to stand' upright. 'Brown Rat!' cried the Mole. `Ah, my dear Moley,' said the 6M'-'Rat, standing up with sudden self-confidence, dusting down his little ankle-length overcoat and putting his spectacles straight, 'my dear -Moley. All night long down that dusty burrow! What a thirst! I wonder if you would oblige?'
`But of course, Ratty,' said the Mole, who was secretly rather frightened of his dapper and devil-may-care friend, 'Lord Polecat, who as you must know is a very rich friend of mine, sent me a hamper for Christmas. There's Dubonnetandcointreauandginandbittersandmeth ylatedspiritsandmoutonrothschildeightynine —' `0 stop, stop,' cried the Brown Rat, holding his head in his little paws, 'one at a time, one at a time,' and they sat down and had a lovely picnic, right where they were, and they talked about floods and disasters and squeezes and 'strikes and snow and ice and all kinds of eco- nomic collapse until they fell, asleep, smiling in each other's furry arms. When they woke up it was gone tea-time, and they decided to go and see Toad. They untied Moley's boat, which was painted pink on the outside and blue on the inside, and rowed out over the mud-brown floodwaters that covered Moley's garden, through a gap in Toad's rotten old fence, and moored outside Mr Toad's garage. On the fence a row of bedraggled black vultures were sitting, all wearing Homburg hats and carrying briefcases. 'Who are they?' asked Ratty, who liked to find out things for himself. 'Those are the River Bankers,' said Mole proudly, 'they are my friends.' Are they?' asked Ratty truculently, 'well, I think I shall make up a poem about them.' So he stood up very unsteadily in the boat, and began to sing a. little song which he called `Ratty's Ditty': `Down in the bilgewater Where the froggies crawl Bankers are a-dabbling Up 'em all! ! '
At this moment Ratty overbalanced altogether and fell into the water with a splash. The Mole felt very unhappy, but the vultures only gave ironic croaks, shrugged their feathers, and settled down again to wait. Inside the garage were all manner of brightly coloured caravans and carts, merry-go-rounds and swings, funny floats with adding machines and telephones on them, all looking very woebegone with the wheels and the shafts broken and all covered with cobwebs. 'Bandwagons,' said Ratty. 'All played out. He's tired of them. I wonder what new fad he's taken up now.'
Toad was lying in an armchair in his drawing room smoking his pipe. `Aha,' cried the slimy creature, rising lethargically to his feet. 'Toad!' replied Ratty, looking at him distastefully, `Moley here and I were just talking about the economic situation.' Oh pooh! Economics! That's such a silly amusement,' interrupted Toad, 'I've given that up long ago. Sheer waste of time. It makes me downright sorry to see you fellows, who ought to know better, spend- ing all your energies in that aimless manner. No, I've discovered the real thing, the only genuine occupation for a lifetime. I propose to devote the remainder of mine to it, and can only regret the wasted years that lie behind me, squandered in trivialities. Come with me, my dear Rat-face, and your amiable friend also, if he will be so very good, and you shall see what you shall see!'
Outside was a very grand red Papal Sedilla, with red awnings and gold brocade, and cushions and decorated poles and goodness knows what else. It appeared to be supported on an impressive computerised laundry-van, and Tuc the faithful workhouse donkey was harnessed to the back. 'There we are' cried Toad, spreading his little arms, 'Idealism, a sense of steadfast moral purpose."Not again?' said Ratty, but Toad wasn't listening. 'Here today, here tomorrow! You fellows won't. know what's happening to you. Up we go!' So the three little creatures climbed up into the swaying seat, Toad pressed a button, and the computerised laundry van began to move very -slowly forwards. Unfortunately Tuc did not seem to like being pulled along backwards, however slowly, and he kicked up his heels, and dug his hooves in, and stayed where he was.
They were still sitting there, Moley pretend- ing to point out the view, and Ratty singing happily to himself, and Toad playing with the controls, when they saw in the distance a faint dust cloud, with a dark centre of energy, advancing towards them with incredible speed while from out of the dust a faint `Non-non' moaned like the cry of an unhappy camel. Hardly regarding it, they turned to resume their conversation, when in an instant it- was on them, rattling chariot wheels, four skeleton horses, an incredibly ancient man, dressed as a Roman Emperor, a great booming `Non-non' and then it was gone, changed back into a distant receding cloud of dust and a faint 'Non- non' echoing in its wake. When Moley and Ratty picked themselves up, they saw that the stationary cedilla had collapsed altogether, the computerised laundry van was lying in a heap of wreckage, and faith- ful Tuc the donkey was lying on its back with its legs in the air. At first they could not see Toad, and then they found him, sitting alone in the middle of the road, smoking his pipe with a glassy expression in his eyes, and murmuring Non-non, non non.' afraid I have had just about as much as any decent self-respecting Rat can reasonably put up with,' said Ratty wearily, and finding a long piece of straw they stuck it into Toad's mouth and blew and blew and blew until Mr Toad swelled up to an enormous size and went bang. Then the two little creatures laughed and danced on the nasty remains, and Moley climbed on to Ratty's shoulders and they trudged slowly back through the floods and the rubbish of Moley's garden, laughing at how funny Mr Toad had looked just before he went bang.
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