"All right, then. I must be going to my family. I haven't had my breakfast yet. Good morning!"
Bumper thanked him again, and turned to follow the sewer back to the garden, not realizing that the Rat had purposely deceived him out of revenge.
STORY VIII
BUMPER RUNS INTO A NEST OF BATS
The way back to the garden seemed a long one, and Bumper soon began to entertain doubts about the kindness of Mr. Sewer Rat. It was an old abandoned sewer, with plenty of room in it for a whole colony of rabbits, but it was terribly dirty and damp. The musty odor was so different from the pleasant fragrance of the garden he had recently left.
"I must have traveled miles and miles," he thought after a while, stopping to clean off some of the dirt that clung to his white fur. "Either that Rat didn't know what he was talking about, or he told a whopping fib. They always were sneaky animals, the Sewer Rats, and I shouldn't have listened to him."
He stopped to consider whether he shouldn't turn around and retrace his steps; but he was disturbed by the fear that he could never recognize the mouth of the drain-pipe he had come through. He had passed a number of these black holes on his way, all looking alike.
"I should have counted them, and then I'd know which one was mine," he reflected.
But there was no good crying over spilt milk. He was in the abandoned sewer, and he had to find his way out somehow. Meanwhile, he was getting desperately hungry. Oh, for a mouthful of the succulent grass that grew in the garden, or a cabbage leaf or a piece of celery—anything, in fact, that would satisfy that gnawing at the stomach!