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THE RAT 



own front-door ; and our parents, or rather our 

 mothers, always insist on our learning to run 

 exactly on the given line. It is the most com- 

 pulsory part of our education. I dare say that, if 

 one could work out the whole sum, this peculiarity 

 of ours would be found to have saved more lives 

 than it has thrown away. The worst of it is that 

 one can never see the whole sum, only a little bit 

 of it, so that it is very difficult to get the right 

 answer. The bit of sum which I was able to work 

 out one morning gave about as unsatisfactory an 

 answer as possible — in fact, I may say at once that 

 it added up to fifteen dead rats. The only satis- 

 factory part of the answer, to my mind, was the 

 fact that I was not one of the fifteen ; if I had been, 

 I could not have done the sum, and you would never 

 have heard the story, so T hope to hear you say that 

 you are glad. I assure you that I was most thank- 

 ful myself that things were no worse ; but it gave 

 me a terrible shock, for I realized that here, at any 

 rate, was a trap which might always catch me, 

 however careful I was, so long as I clung to the 

 teaching of my infancy and trod the beaten track. 

 Originality among us is very liable to lead to 

 disaster, but in this case it does look as if it would 

 be safer always to take a line of your own. The 



