n street,
reminded him that he had not breakfasted that day, and that he was
exceedingly hungry after his long walk. He marched into the Inn,
ordered the best luncheon that could be provided at so short a notice,
and sat down to eat it in the coffee-room.

He was about half-way through his meal when an only too familiar sound,
approaching down the street, made him start and fall a-trembling all
over. The poop-poop! drew nearer and nearer, the car could be heard to
turn into the inn-yard and come to a stop, and Toad had to hold on to
the leg of the table to conceal his over-mastering emotion. Presently
the party entered the coffee-room, hungry, talkative, and gay, voluble
on their experiences of the morning and the merits of the chariot that
had brought them along so well. Toad listened eagerly, all ears, for a
time; at last he could stand it no longer. He slipped out of the room
quietly, paid his bill at the bar, and as soon as he got outside
sauntered round quietly to the inn-yard. "There cannot be any harm," he
said to himself, "in my only just _looking_ at it!"

The car stood in the middle of the yard, quite unattended, the
stable-helps and other hangers-on being all at their dinner. Toad
walked slowly round it, inspecting, criticising, musing deeply.

"I wonder," he said to himself presently, "I wonder if this sort of
car _starts_ easily?"

Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold of
the handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the
old passion seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul.
As if in a dream he found himself, somehow, seated in the driver's
seat; as if in a dream, he pulled the lever and swung the car round
the yard and out through the archway; and, as if in a dream, all sense
of right and wrong, all fear of obvious consequences, seemed
temporarily suspended. He increased his pace, and as the car devoured
the street and leapt forth on the high road through the open country,
he was only conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and
highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone
trail, before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness
and everlasting night. He chanted as he flew, and the car responded
with sonorous drone; the miles were eaten up under him as he sped he
knew not whither, fulfilling his instincts, living his hour, reckless
of what might come to him.

* * *