“Who can tell?” said the Badger. “People come⁠—they stay for a while, they flourish, they build⁠—and they go. It is their way. But we remain. There were badgers here, I’ve been told, long before that same city ever came to be. And now there are badgers here again. We are an enduring lot, and we may move out for a time, but we wait, and are patient, and back we come. And so it will ever be.”

“Well, and when they went at last, those people?” said the Mole.