A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces.

Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.

For my life, I confess to you, feels to me today somewhat narrow and circumscribed.

The Mole had long wanted to make the I acquaintance of the Badger. He seemed, by all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though rarely visible, to make his unseen influence felt by everybody about the place.

The clever men of Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed but they none of them know one half as much as intelligent Mr. Toad.

It's not the sort of night for bed, anyhow.

Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?