s nose. It was hard, he thought, to be within sight of safety and
almost of home, and to be baulked by the want of a few wretched
shillings and by the pettifogging mistrustfulness of paid officials.
Very soon his escape would be discovered, the hunt would be up, he
would be caught, reviled, loaded with chains, dragged back again to
prison and bread-and-water and straw; his guards and penalties would
be doubled; and O, what sarcastic remarks the girl would make! What
was to be done? He was not swift of foot; his figure was unfortunately
recognisable. Could he not squeeze under the seat of a carriage? He
had seen this method adopted by schoolboys, when the journey-money
provided by thoughtful parents had been diverted to other and better
ends. As he pondered, he found himself opposite the engine, which was
being oiled, wiped, and generally caressed by its affectionate driver,
a burly man with an oil-can in one hand and a lump of cotton-waste in
the other.

"Hullo, mother!" said the engine-driver, "what's the trouble? You
don't look particularly cheerful."

"O, sir!" said Toad, crying afresh, "I am a poor unhappy washerwoman,
and I've lost all my money, and can't pay for a ticket, and I _must_
get home to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I don't know. O
dear, O dear!"

"That's a bad business, indeed," said the engine-driver reflectively.
"Lost your money--and can't get home--and got some kids, too, waiting
for you, I dare say?"

"Any amount of 'em," sobbed Toad. "And they'll be hungry--and playing
with matches--and upsetting lamps, the little innocents!--and
quarrelling, and going on generally. O dear, O dear!"

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," said the good engine-driver.
"You're a washerwoman to your trade, says you. Very well, that's that.
And I'm an engine-driver, as you well may see, and there's no denying
it's terribly dirty work. Uses up a power of shirts, it does, till my
missus is fair tired of washing of 'em. If you'll wash a few shirts
for me when you get home, and send 'em along, I'll give you a ride on
my engine. It's against the Company's regulations, but we're not so
very particular in these out-of-the-way parts."

The Toad's misery turned into rapture as he eagerly scrambled up into
the cab of the engine. Of course, he had never washed a shirt in his
life, and couldn't if he tried and, anyhow, he wasn't going to begin;
but he thought: "When I get safely home to Toad Hall, and have money
aga