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The mole's uneasy, crimson-pointed muzzle came from a hole right on the water's edge. He was feeling for the water. Last night the swollen river had forced its way a yard into his run, and he had blundered headlong into it. Swimming is easy to the mole, but swimming in an inch-wide tube is risky. So, to-night, he was cautious.
And saying a hasty good afternoon, he popped through his doorway and vanished at Billy Woodchuck's feet. Greatly disappointed, Billy Woodchuck turned homewards. "I'd have been in a pretty fix if he had finished my house, and I had tried to move my furniture into it," he muttered. "It's lucky I asked to see a sample of Grandfather Mole's work," said Billy Woodchuck.
"Oh, I'll provide you with cork ones, and here they are," said Harvey, producing a pair. And so it was settled. Mr. Mole was to go to the ball, and his disguise was to be well-known spangles and colours of a harlequin. Harvey himself chose a clown's costume and carried over his shoulder Mole's wooden legs, in case any thing happened to the cork ones he was walking on for the first time.
"My neighbor has asked for you. What good fortune for a poor child like you. Now we will prepare your wedding clothes. They must be both woollen and linen. Nothing must be wanting when you are the mole's wife." Tiny had to turn the spindle, and the field-mouse hired four spiders, who were to weave day and night.
Some birds, with the help of a strong beak, by repeated blows, penetrate the trunk of a tree: but the auger, the gimlet, the wimble do the same work better and more quickly. The knife is superior to the carnivore's teeth for tearing meat; the hoe better than the mole's paw for digging earth, the trowel than the beaver's tail for beating and spreading mortar.
But the Rat kindly looked in another direction, and presently the Mole's spirits revived again, and he was even able to give some straight back-talk to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to each other about his bedraggled appearance.
"Are they?" said the girl sharply. It was rarely anything took place in the stable without her knowledge. And Make-Way-There, who was one of Mr. Silver's horses, was to run at the Paris Meeting two weeks hence. The girl, to hide her resentment, placed her hand on the pony's neck, hard as marble beneath a skin that was soft to the touch as a mole's.
The Mole struck a match, and by its light the Rat saw that they were standing in an open space, neatly swept and sanded underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole's little front door, with 'Mole End' painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell-pull at the side.
"Well, then, sar, who shall be the first person I must bring before you?" No reply. "Well, Mr. Mole, name somebody," said Monday, in his most insinuating manner. Mole's only reply was a dissenting growl. "No." "Will you, Mr. Harkaway, sar?" he said. "Well, I will if you like suppose that we call upon your friend, Sunday?" "Very good, sar." And then he set to work.
They have not the poetic vision, their ideas are as the mole's; they wish to make Messiahs out of half-pence. What inspiration for the soul is there in the sight of snuffy collectors that have the air of Schnorrers? with Karlkammer's red hair for a flag and the sound of Gradkoski's nose blowing for a trumpet-peal.
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