Please don't think that
saying all this doesn't hurt me more than it hurts you.'
Toad remained a long while plunged in thought. At last he raised his
head, and the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features.
'You have conquered, my friends,' he said in broken accents. 'It was,
to be sure, but a small thing that I asked--merely leave to blossom
and expand for yet one more evening, to let myself go and hear the
tumultuous applause that always seems to me--somehow--to bring out my
best qualities. However, you are right, I know, and I am wrong.
Hence forth I will be a very different Toad. My friends, you shall
never have occasion to blush for me again. But, O dear, O dear, this
is a hard world!'
And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with
faltering footsteps.
'Badger,' said the Rat, '_I_ feel like a brute; I wonder what YOU feel
like?'
'O, I know, I know,' said the Badger gloomily. 'But the thing had to
be done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and
be respected. Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and
jeered at by stoats and weasels?'
'Of course not,' said the Rat.
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