Old Mr. Toad in "Old Mr. Toad's Queer Tongue"

Ryder looked and saw a big black ant coming. Then he kept his eyes on Old Mr. Toad's mouth. Suddenly there was a little flash of red from it, so tiny and so quick that Ryder couldn't be absolutely sure that he saw it. But when he looked for the ant, it was nowhere to be seen. Ryder looked at Old Mr. Toad very hard.
"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Toad, that you've got a tongue long enough to reach way over to where that ant was?" he asked.