'
'Do be quiet a minute, Toad,' said the girl. 'You talk too much,
that's your chief fault, and I'm trying to think, and you hurt my
head. As I said, I have an aunt who is a washerwoman; she does the
washing for all the prisoners in this castle--we try to keep any
paying business of that sort in the family, you understand. She takes
out the washing on Monday morning, and brings it in on Friday evening.
This is a Thursday. Now, this is what occurs to me: you're very
rich--at least you're always telling me so--and she's very poor. A
few pounds wouldn't make any difference to you, and it would mean a
lot to her. Now, I think if she were properly approached--squared, I
believe is the word you animals use--you could come to some
arrangement by which she would let you have her dress and bonnet and
so on, and you could escape from the castle as the official
washerwoman. You're very alike in many respects--particularly about
the figure.'
'We're NOT,' said the Toad in a huff. 'I have a very elegant figure--
for what I am.'
'So has my aunt,' replied the girl, 'for what SHE is.
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