Beatrix Potter Books

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Mr. Tod was coming up Bull Banks, and he was in the very worst of
tempers. First he had been upset by breaking the plate. It was his
own fault; but it was a china plate, the last of the dinner service
that had belonged to his grandmother, old Vixen Tod. Then the
midges had been very bad. And he had failed to catch a hen
pheasant on her nest; and it had contained only five eggs, two of
them addled. Mr. Tod had had an unsatisfactory night.
As usual, when out of humour, he determined to move house. First
he tried the pollard willow, but it was damp; and the otters had left
a dead fish near it. Mr. Tod likes nobody's leavings but his own.
He made his way up the hill; his temper was not improved by
noticing unmistakable marks of badger. No one else grubs up the
moss so wantonly as Tommy Brock.