ious Rat at once resumed his preparations,
and started running between his four little heaps, muttering,
"Here's-a-belt-for-the-Rat, here's-a-belt-for-the-Mole,
here's-a-belt-for-the-Toad, here's-a-belt-for-the-Badger!" and so on,
with every fresh accoutrement he produced, to which there seemed
really no end; so the Mole drew his arm through Toad's, led him out
into the open air, shoved him into a wicker chair, and made him tell
him all his adventures from beginning to end, which Toad was only too
willing to do. The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to
check his statements or to criticise in an unfriendly spirit, rather
let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to
the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-
time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and
the raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much
as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?

XII

THE RETURN OF ULYSSES

When it began to grow dark, the Rat, with an air of excitement and
mystery, summoned them back into the parlour, stood each of them up
alongside of his little heap, and proceeded to dress them up for the
coming expedition. He was very earnest and thorough-going about it,
and the affair took quite a long time. First, there was a belt to go
round each animal, and then a sword to be stuck into each belt, and
then a cutlass on the other side to balance it. Then a pair of
pistols, a policeman's truncheon, several sets of handcuffs, some
bandages and sticking-plaster, and a flask and a sandwich-case. The
Badger laughed good-humouredly and said, "All right, Ratty! It amuses
you and it doesn't hurt me. I'm going to do all I've got to do with
this here stick." But the Rat only said, "_Please_, Badger. You know
I shouldn't like you to blame me afterwards and say I had forgotten
_anything_!"

When all was quite ready, the Badger took a dark lantern in one paw,
grasped his great stick with the other, and said, "Now then, follow
me! Mole first, 'cos I'm very pleased with him; Rat next; Toad last.
And look here, Toady! Don't you chatter so much as usual, or you'll be
sent back, as sure as fate!"

The Toad was so anxious not to be left out that he took up the
inferior position assigned to him without a murmur, and the animals
set off. The Badger led them along by the river for a little way, and
then suddenly swung himself over the