The Rambles of a Rat

a large warehouse, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Poplar, and close

re rats might frolic and gambol, and play at hide-and-seek, to their hearts' content. We had nibbled a nice little way into the ware

the Norwegian brown rat, on which we look with-I was going to say with contempt, but I rather think that it is quite another feeling, and one to which neither rats nor men generally like to plead guilty. I know that we do not usually choose to keep company with them; but whether it be because t

creature, would only look with kindness and pity upon a companion so unhappy as to have personal defects. He would never ridicule a condition which might have been his own, nor find a subject for merriment in that which to another was a cause of annoyance; but we were only inconsiderate young rats, and there was no end to our jokes on our piebald comrade. "Oddity," "Guinea-pig," "Old Spotty," and "Frightful"-such were the names which we gave him. The first was that by which he was best

the dull, many-paned windows, lighting our revels; though we cared little for light, our del

Brisk, the liveliest of my brothers, had sat watching in a hole from noon until dusk, and now hurried through our li

we'll have a glance at the cargo. They've bee

f rats whisked th

ug

iversal squeak

dig

with a rat. Indeed, he passed amongst us for a philosopher, and I had learnt not a little from his experience; for he delighted in talking over his travels, and but for a little testiness of temper, would have been a

pi

had a taste for general information. "I've seen it produ

all that related to the large creatures upon two legs, called Man, whom I believe

eir lives might depend on it, not a step would they stir. Then, when they awake from their unnatural sleep, their bodies are cold, their heads heavy; they feel sick, and faint, and sad! And if this should happen day after day, at l

ave opium to man; it is a g