8
TOAD OF TOAD HALL
mutterings. In a little while we can distinguish words. It is our old friend MOLE.)
MOLE (as he comes laboriously into the daylight)
Scrape and scratch and scrabble and scrooge, scrooge and scrabble and scrape and scratch. Up we go, up we go. . . . Pop! (He stands up and brushes himself.) Ah! (He takes a deep breath of daylight.) This is fine. This is better than whitewash. Hang spring cleaning! (He walks about, making ecstatic noises to himself.) Oh, what a day. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Blow spring cleaning! (He rubs his eyes with his paw.) Is that a river? Oh my, oh my. Bother spring cleaning!
(The river has hollowed out a little bay here so that NURSE and MARIGOLD, from where they are sitting in Box B, can see their own side of the batik, where it bends round in a curve; and they can see RAT'S front door and they can see bright eyes and a sharp friendly face with whiskers as the WATER RAT comes out of it.)
RAT
Hallo, Mole.
MOLE
Hallo, Rat.
RAT
Don't seem to have seen you about before.
MOLE (shyly)
I—I don't go out much, as a rule.
