all, and I don't know as he could. And yet very few of his neighbors know
anything about that tongue and how different it is from most other tongues.
Peter Rabbit didn't until Old Mr. Toad showed him after Peter had puzzled
and puzzled over the mysterious way in which bugs and flies disappeared
whenever they happened to come within two inches or less of Old Mr. Toad.

What Peter couldn't understand was what Old Mr. Toad did with a tongue that
would reach two inches beyond his mouth. He said as much.

"I'll show you my tongue, and then you'll wish you had one just like it,"
said Old Mr. Toad, with a twinkle in his eyes.

He opened his big mouth and slowly ran his tongue out its full length.
"Why! Why-ee!" exclaimed Peter. "It's fastened at the wrong end!"

"No such thing!" replied Old Mr. Toad indignantly. "If it was fastened at
the other end, how could I run it out so far?"

"But mine and all other tongues that I ever have seen are fastened way down
in the throat," protested Peter. "Yours is fastened at the other end, way
in the very front of your mouth. I never heard of such a thing."

"There are a great many things you have never heard of, Peter Rabbit,"
replied Old Mr. Toad drily. "Mine is the right way to have a tongue.
Because it is fastened way up in the front of my mouth that way, I can use
the whole of it. You see it goes out its full length. Then, when I draw it
in with a bug on the end of it, I just turn it over so that the end that
was out goes way back in my throat and takes the bug with it to just the
right place to swallow."