“I’m afraid it is the trouble you mind, though,” replied the Toad languidly. “I can quite understand it. It’s natural enough. You’re tired of bothering about me. I mustn’t ask you to do anything further. I’m a nuisance, I know.”
“You are, indeed,” said the Rat. “But I tell you, I’d take any trouble on earth for you, if only you’d be a sensible animal.”
“If I thought that, Ratty,” murmured Toad, more feebly than ever, “then I would beg you—for the last time, probably—to step round to the village as quickly as possible—even now it may be too late—and fetch the doctor. But don’t you bother. It’s only a trouble, and perhaps we may as well let things take their course.”
“Why, what do you want a doctor for?” inquired the Rat, coming closer and examining him. He certainly lay very still and flat, and his voice was weaker and his manner much changed.
“Surely you have noticed of late——” murmured Toad. “But, no—why should you? Noticing things is only a trouble. To-morrow, indeed, you may be saying to yourself, ‘O, if only I had noticed sooner! If only I had done something!’ But no; it’s a trouble. Never mind—forget that I asked.”
“Look here, old man,” said the Rat, beginning to get rather alarmed, “of course I’ll fetch a doctor to you, if you really think you want him. But you can hardly be bad enough for that yet. Let’s talk about something else.”
“I fear, dear friend,” said Toad, with a sad smile, “that ‘talk’ can do little in a case like this—or doctors either, for that matter; still, one must grasp at the slightest straw. And, by the way—while you are about it—I hate to give you additional trouble, but I happen to remember that you will pass the door—would you mind at the same time asking the lawyer to step up? It would be a convenience to me, and there are moments—perhaps I should say there is a moment—when one must face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to exhausted nature!”
“A lawyer! O, he must be really bad!” the affrighted Rat said to himself, as he hurried from the room, not forgetting, however, to lock the door carefully behind him.
Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he had no one to consult.
“It’s best to be on the safe side,” he said, on reflection. “I’ve known Toad fancy himself frightfully bad before, without the slightest reason; but I’ve never heard him ask for a lawyer! If there’s nothing really the matter, the doctor will tell him he’s an old ass, and cheer him up; and that will be something gained. I’d better humour him and go; it won’t take very long.” So he ran off to the village on his errand of mercy.