SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 309 



any of the rooms. Their incursions usually took 

 place immediately after meals, and when there was 

 a likelihood of finding fragments of food scattered 

 about. During the last year of my stay in Calcutta 

 there were no dogs in the house, and the visits of 

 the rats became more frequent and methodical than 

 before, but, even then, they were mere passing events 

 unattended by any damage. Night after night, 

 whilst I sat reading at the side of the dinner-table 

 after the servants had gone, there would be a sudden 

 sound of hurrying feet, and two great rats would 

 come racing into the room from the hall, to hunt 

 about carefully over the floor, climb up and quarter 

 about over the table, and, after having cleared off 

 everything that they could find to eat, take their 

 departure as noisily and unceremoniously as they had 

 arrived. As they never did any harm and always 

 left the house at once on finishing their meal, I 

 came quite to tolerate their visits, and even to miss 

 them when anything prevented their occurrence. 

 This being the case, it was not unnatural that the 

 rats came to regard themselves in the light of family 

 friends, and were at last so confident that they had 

 occasionally to be forcibly repressed when their 

 familiarity led them to extend their journeys over the 

 table by excursions on to my head and shoulders. 

 However far a tolerance of rats may go, it can hardly 

 be expected to lead to any desire for immediate 

 contact with them, or pleasure in the sense of being 



