'Aha!' he thought, 'this is a piece
of luck! A railway station is the thing I want most in the whole
world at this moment; and what's more, I needn't go through the town
to get it, and shan't have to support this humiliating character by
repartees which, though thoroughly effective, do not assist one's
sense of self-respect.'
He made his way to the station accordingly, consulted a time-table,
and found that a train, bound more or less in the direction of his
home, was due to start in half-an-hour. 'More luck!' said Toad, his
spirits rising rapidly, and went off to the booking-office to buy his
ticket.
He gave the name of the station that he knew to be nearest to the
village of which Toad Hall was the principal feature, and mechanically
put his fingers, in search of the necessary money, where his waistcoat
pocket should have been. But here the cotton gown, which had nobly
stood by him so far, and which he had basely forgotten, intervened,
and frustrated his efforts. In a sort of nightmare he struggled with
the strange uncanny thing that seemed to hold his hands, turn all
muscular strivings to water, and laugh at him all the time; while
other travellers, forming up in a line behind, waited with impatience,
making suggestions of more or less value and comments of more or less
stringency and point.
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