Peter Rabbit had heard of Robber but never had seen him until one moonlight night he happened to go up to Farmer Brown's barn just out of curiosity. He saw a hole under the barn and was trying to decide whether or not to go in and find out what was inside when who should come out but Robber himself. His coat was so rough and untidy, he was so dirty, he smelled so unclean, and he looked so savage that Peter at once decided that he wasn't interested in that barn and took himself off to the Green Forest, lip-perty-lipperty-lip, as fast as he could go. All the rest of the night he thought about Robber the Brown Rat, and the very next day he hurried over to the Smiling Pool to ask Grandfather Frog how it was that Robber had become such a disreputable fellow with not a single friend.
Grandfather Frog had had a good breakfast of foolish green flies and was feeling in the very best of humor.
“Chug-a-rum!” said he, “Robber the Brown Rat is an outcast because he is all bad. His father was all bad, and his father's father, and so on way back to the beginning of things when the world was young. There was no good in any of them, and there is no good in Robber. He is a disgrace to the whole race of meadow and forest people, and so he lives only where man lives, and I have heard that he is as much hated by man as by the rest of us.
“Way back when the world was young, his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, who was the first of his race, lived with the rest of the little people in the Green Forest, and Old Mother Nature gave him the same chance to make an honest living that she gave to the rest. For a while Mr. Rat was honest. He was honest just as long as it was easier to be honest than dishonest. But when the hard times came of which you know, and food became scarce, Mr. Rat was too lazy to even try to earn his own living. He discovered that it was easier to steal from his neighbors. He wasn't at all particular whom he stole from, but he took from big and little alike. He was so sly about it that for a long time no one found him out.
“By and by his neighbors began to wonder how it was that Mr. Rat always seemed fat and well fed and yet never was seen to work. But Mr. Rat was too crafty to be caught stealing. He said he didn't need much to live on, which was an untruth, for he was a very greedy fellow. Now laziness is a habit that grows. First Mr. Rat was too lazy to work for his living. Then, little by little, he grew too lazy to be crafty. He grew bolder and bolder in his stealing, until at last he just took what he pleased from those who were smaller than he. Being well fed, he was strong. All the little people of his own size and smaller feared him. The bigger people said it was no business of theirs, so long as he didn't steal from them. All the time he was stealing from them, but hadn't been caught.
“Finally he grew too lazy to keep himself looking neat. His coat was always unbrushed and untidy-looking. He was always dirty. You see, it was too much work to even wash his face and hands. There was always food sticking to his whiskers. The little people kept away from him because they were afraid of him. The bigger people would have nothing to do with him because they were ashamed of him, ashamed to be seen in his company.
[Original]
“So lazy Mr. Rat grew dirtier in his habits, bolder in his stealing, and impudent to everybody. He became quarrelsome. It was about this time that the bigger people found him out.