“He is indeed the best of animals,” replied Rat. “So simple, so good-natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps he’s not very clever⁠—we can’t all be geniuses; and it may be that he is both boastful and conceited. But he has got some great qualities, has Toady.”

Rounding a bend in the river, they came in sight of a handsome, dignified old house of mellowed red brick, with well-kept lawns reaching down to the water’s edge.

“There’s Toad Hall,” said the Rat; “and that creek on the left, where the notice-board says, ‘Private. No landing allowed,’ leads to his boathouse, where we’ll leave the boat. The stables are over there to the right. That’s the banqueting-hall you’re looking at now⁠—very old, that is. Toad is rather rich, you know, and this is really one of the nicest houses in these parts, though we never admit as much to Toad.”

They glided up the creek, and the Mole shipped his sculls as they passed into the shadow of a large boathouse. Here they saw many handsome boats, slung from the crossbeams or hauled up on a slip, but none in the water; and the place had an unused and a deserted air.