VIII 



' A traveller's tales ' 



I believe that I promised to tell you some of the 

 stories which my friend of the riverside told me. 

 He tried, of course, to make out that everything 

 had happened to himself, but I knew better than to 

 believe him implicitly. I dare say that you think 

 that / have gone through a good deal in the way of 

 adventures, and so I have, and I can guarantee, in 

 case you may think that I also am fitting the 

 experiences of others on to my own shoulders, that 

 every word of the preceding narrative is true, as I 

 have told it. But as for this shameless and un- 

 blushing friend of mine — well, considering that 

 our lives are limited to a small number of years, 

 and that he was not by any manner of means an 

 old rat, all I can say is that, even if he could have 

 survived the perils through which he must have 

 passed, he could not possibly have seen all the 

 sights or done all the deeds to which he laid 

 claim in the time. I do not think that he was 



