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He looked for escape this way and that, saw that he was too far from the bank for a flying leap, and sullenly resigned himself to his fate.

'If it comes to that,' he thought in desperation, 'I suppose any fool can WASH!'

He fetched tub, soap, and other necessaries from the cabin, selected a few garments at random, tried to recollect what he had seen in casual glances through laundry windows, and set to.

A long half-hour passed, and every minute of it saw Toad getting crosser and crosser.

Nothing that he could do to the things seemed to please them or do them good.

He tried coaxing, he tried slapping, he tried punching; they smiled back at him out of the tub unconverted, happy in their original sin.

Once or twice he looked nervously over his shoulder at the barge-woman, but she appeared to be gazing out in front of her, absorbed in her steering.

His back ached badly, and he noticed with dismay that his paws were beginning to get all crinkly.

Now Toad was very proud of his paws.

He muttered under his breath words that should never pass the lips of either washerwomen or Toads; and lost the soap, for the fiftieth time.

A burst of laughter made him straighten himself and look round.

The barge-woman was leaning back and laughing unrestrainedly, till the tears ran down her cheeks.

'I've been watching you all the time,' she gasped.

'I thought you must be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked.

Pretty washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your life, I'll lay!'

Toad's temper which had been simmering viciously for some time, now fairly boiled over, and he lost all control of himself.

'You common, low, FAT barge-woman!' he shouted; 'don't you dare to talk to your betters like that! Washerwoman indeed! I would have you to know that I am a Toad, a very well-known, respected, distinguished Toad! I may be under a bit of a cloud at present, but I will NOT be laughed at by a bargewoman!'

The woman moved nearer to him and peered under his bonnet keenly and closely.

'Why, so you are!' she cried.

'Well, I never! A horrid, nasty, crawly Toad! And in my nice clean barge, too! Now that is a thing that I will NOT have.'

She relinquished the tiller for a moment.

One big mottled arm shot out and caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other-gripped him fast by a hind-leg.

Then the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge seemed to flit lightly across the sky, the wind whistled in his ears, and Toad found himself flying through the air, revolving rapidly as he went.

The water, when he eventually reached it with a loud splash, proved quite cold enough for his taste, though its chill was not sufficient to quell his proud spirit, or slake the heat of his furious temper.

He rose to the surface spluttering, and when he had wiped the duck-weed out of his eyes the first thing he saw was the fat barge-woman looking back at him over the stern of the retreating barge and laughing; and he vowed, as he coughed and choked, to be even with her.

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