Tommy Smith thought that this was rather a grand way of talking, and he was just beginning, “Perhaps, if you were to see my house”—when the mole went on with, “Of course, such a fine palace as mine ought to have a good many fine roads leading up to it.”
“Ought it?” said Tommy Smith; “and how many has it?”
“Seven,” said the mole.
“Seven!” exclaimed Tommy Smith.
“Yes,” said the mole, “and I make them all myself. Why, how many has yours?”
“It has only one,” said Tommy Smith, “but I think that is quite enough.”
“For a house, perhaps, it may be,” said the mole; “but I should be sorry to have to put up with it. My palace has seven, and I know some very rich moles who have eight. These are the great corridors which some people call the high roads. Some of them run through fine avenues of tree-roots, and, you know, a fine avenue of tree-roots has a splendid appearance. They wind all about, and go for ever such a way, and there are smaller corridors which run out of them on each side, and spread all over the fields.”
“You mean under the fields, Mr. Mole,” said Tommy Smith; “for, you know, the grass grows over your corridors, and nobody can see them.”
“I am very glad they can’t,” said the mole, “or my bedroom, or my nursery either.”
“What, have you a nursery too?” said Tommy Smith. “Why, that is just as if you were a person.”