Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows

12. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES (continued)

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. Hence forth 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 laughing- stock, 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,