'THIS COMES HOPPING' 



13 



came. Now we are here and they are gone. 

 Therefore it seems highly probable (we don't care 

 to put it any stronger than that, for fear of hurting 

 their haughty and aristocratic feelings) — highly 

 probable, I say, that we have always had the 

 right of going in first, and that they got killed off 

 gradually, because they were left outside among 

 the dogs and boys and sticks. 



' Which goes in first now V Which of us, I 

 suppose you mean? Well, that is rather a 

 difficult question to answer. I do not think that 

 we have any regular rule of precedence. If there 

 is a rule, we all of us break it. The general sort of 

 etiquette is that the rat who gets there first goes 

 in first. It is more useful than most rules, because 

 it teaches us to ' do ' and not to ' don't,' because it 

 teaches us to run fast, without any need of prizes, 

 which you seem to require before you can learn to 

 do anything. 



What we do punish very severely among our- 

 selves is taking more time to get into a hole than 

 is absolutely necessary, because the delay may 

 cost somebody else his life. ' Clear the line 

 quickly ' is the public rule put up in the streets, 

 and we teach our children a sort of private one, 

 which is, ' If you see that somebody else runs 



