18 



THE RAT 



us when we were in the Ark. If there was to be 

 any spreading out of the family afterwards, some of 

 it was bound to turn towards the water, after seeing 

 so much of it for forty days. Men have come to 

 regard him as a harmless little lunatic, who does 

 not eat trout, after all, but only lives on lettuces and 

 water-radishes and cress. Personally, I can never 

 see why he should not have a trout now and then, 

 if he fancies one. But he cannot swim quick 

 enough. He just pops about the banks and some- 

 times swims across the stream, trailing behind him 

 a long stalk of water- weed, which he eats, sitting up 

 on his hind legs ; and then he scratches his head, as a 

 way of saying grace, and pops into his hole. 



That is the little fellow who came to the banks of 

 the lake, and grew and multiplied, because nobody 

 took the trouble to kill him. And one day he made 

 a hole in the dam itself, and burrowed deep into it 

 right under the water, and the water came in after 

 him, and ate its way further and further in. He 

 was not drowned, because he burrowed right up to 

 the top and got out, but the water biuTowed down- 

 wards, and kept on eating deeper and deeper, till at 

 last it came through on the other side, with a spout 

 and a shout, and the whole lake pushed so hard 

 that, with a great liea\'e and bulge, all the im- 



