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WOODMYTH & FABLE 



for securing specimens of leather straps, 

 old cartridges, tobacco stamps, pipes, etc., 

 which it steals when the men are asleep. 

 None of the objects, of course, is of the 

 slightest use to the animal. Simply he 

 likes them. He goes on adding to his 

 heap of rubbish till it is perhaps four or 

 five feet high and eight or ten feet across. 

 There on the top, in sunny weather, sits 

 the diminutive collector, — not so large as 

 a House-rat, — gloating over his posses- 

 sions. He turns them over so that the 

 sun will strike them better, and enjoys 

 them, but worries his little life out night 

 and day lest some other Rat should steal 

 from his pile. 



The larger the pile, the more pleasure 

 and the more worry he finds in it, for it 

 lets all the world of enemies know just 



