The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

'Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

So—this—is—a—River!' 'THE River,' corrected the Rat. 'And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!' 'By it and with it and on it and in it,' said the Rat. 'It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing.

They found him in a sort of a trance, a happy smile on his face, his eyes still fixed on the dusty wake of their destroyer. At intervals he was still heard to murmur 'Poop-poop!'