) 'Stupid animal that I was'
(he said), 'now I must languish in this dungeon, till people who were
proud to say they knew me, have forgotten the very name of Toad! O
wise old Badger!' (he said), 'O clever, intelligent Rat and sensible
Mole! What sound judgments, what a knowledge of men and matters you
possess! O unhappy and forsaken Toad!' With lamentations such as
these he passed his days and nights for several weeks, refusing his
meals or intermediate light refreshments, though the grim and ancient
gaoler, knowing that Toad's pockets were well lined, frequently
pointed out that many comforts, and indeed luxuries, could by
arrangement be sent in--at a price--from outside.
Now the gaoler had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted, who
assisted her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was
particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung
on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great
annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was
shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept
several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel.
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