128 



THE RAT 



that it can hardly be brought into the argument. 

 The fact is, I think, that we do it so seldom that it 

 has come to be regarded as an eccentricity. The 

 other creatures, yourselves included, do it so regu- 

 larly that it has become, in a manner, an every- 

 day event with you. Personally, I take it to be a 

 wise dispensation of Nature, worked out by her in 

 order to keep up the proper supply of all animals 

 throughout the world. I have even seen every 

 ditch in the whole countryside filled with frogs 

 — frogs in thousands — and all sprung apparently 

 from nowhere. Lucky for you that the tigers and 

 bears do not suffer from the same complaint ! 



And so it was with us. I had been feeling 

 uneasy for several days, and it worried me a good 

 deal, because I could not see any reason for it. 

 I was in perfect health, no pains under my pinafore 

 or anywhere else, and yet I did not care a bit for 

 my dinner. And one night something called me 

 out into the fields. I do not know what it was, 

 but I felt that I must go ; and I suddenly found 

 myself one of many hundreds of rats, all travelling 

 quietly and persistently towards the south, just as 

 if we were cold, and wanted to make our way into 

 a warmer climate. Perhaps we all ' heard the East 

 a-calling,' and wanted to get back to India, the 



