f me.

"'I tell you what it is, old fellow,' said Teddy, rubbing me
industriously with his pocket handkerchief; 'you must not let me into
any more scrapes, for I could only get you again by promising Ma to be
very careful, and only take you in the lanes. So we must mind what we
are about!'

"And so we did; and were as sober and steady as possible; perhaps, now
that I was a little rusty from want of exercise, I was not as nimble as
I used to be, but we got on very well, very comfortably indeed, and I
began to think our troubles were over, and that we were getting older
and more sedate. We had a few minor mishaps, but these were not of a
serious order; for instance, when I just happened to run against little
Polly Stubbs, a small toddling body of two years old; and upset her.
But, then, after all, she was a very waddley sort of duck on her feet,
and was very good tempered, so after the first shriek, she scrambled up
with her little fat roley-poley body, and began to laugh. And Teddy was
so delighted with her good temper, that he patted her dirty cheeks, and
gave her such a big lump of gingerbread out of his pocket (where it had
been rubbed all crumbling with his marbles), that her cheeks stuck out
on each side as if she had a swelled face, she had stuffed her mouth so
full.

"Then another day we found a charming shady lane with no house in sight,
and not a sound of a carriage to be heard, and so off we went
helter-skelter,--I gliding swiftly on in advance, like a slender snake,
and Teddy tearing along behind with his short, stumpy legs, and his face
as red as a full blown peony,--puffing like a pair of bellows. He had
reached me after a long chase, and gave me a good bowl on, when we
turned round a slight winding, and came right into the middle of a brood
of young ducklings, with their fat majestic mother waddling after them.
Oh there was a scatter, as I rushed into the middle of them like a
steam-engine coming, express into a flock of sheep! Some tumbled
headlong into the pond hard by, others scrambled off out of the way as
they best could, while old mother duck quacked and waddled like one
possessed. But one poor little lame duckling, the last of the troop, was
just in my way. I could not stop myself, so the only thing I could do to
prevent myself from killing or hurting her, was to fall, which I did,
flat round her in the dusty road, to her infinite fright. But she was
not hurt, and, after crouching down for a momen