82 



THE RAT 



teeth, though I pohshed them up a bit in places 

 and left my mark upon them, and the door was too 

 stiff for me to push it up. 



When the old man saw that I was really sorry 

 for him, and had not come there to mock, he told 

 me all about it. He did not find it very easy to 

 get nice food with so many active young rats about, 

 and in his younger days he had been very clever at 

 walking into cage-traps and getting behind the bait, 

 so as to pull it backwards, if any pull came in spite 

 of all his care to nibble it off neatly, without dis- 

 turbing the spring. It had been one of his show 

 tricks. This trap, he said, must have been very 

 well set, or else age had made his jaws clumsy, 

 for he had hardly begun to detach the bait when 

 ' bang ' went the door, and there he was. And he 

 turned to the bait in his anger and ate it all up 

 before my very eyes. I saw him alive and well 

 a week afterwards, and he told me that the dog had 

 been only a frightened puppy, after all, who had 

 barked round him and pretended to catch hold, but 

 had never come within six inches of him, and that 

 he had contrived to reach cover and escape under 

 some palings. He was lucky. That kind of thing 

 does not often happen, and when it does it is liable 

 to make rats presume on their luck and try the 



