*A TRAVELLER'S TALES" 177 



naturally an untruthful rat, but I suppose that he 

 thought that the story of adventure would be more 

 interesting if he told it all as having happened to 

 himself. Personally, I dare say that I did enjoy 

 it more when told in this way ; but I cannot quite 

 bring myself to try to make you believe that the 

 adventures which I am about to relate are my 

 own : you would only laugh at me, and it is non- 

 sense to pretend, when there is no chance of your 

 pretence being believed. 



He was a clever rat, and he told his stories well, 

 and I can only wish that you had heard them from 

 his own lips. But, as you did not happen to be 

 there, I must do the best I can. What I do wish 

 you quite to understand is that, though probably 

 not true of him, they may well be absolutely true 

 of some other rat or rats, however strange they may 

 seem to you. He was not an untruthful rat in that 

 kind of way. 



He told me that he began life in a London 

 sewer. The whole of London, and Paris as well, 

 according to his account, is undermined by 

 enormous sewers, so big that even men can walk 

 about in them. He declared that he was quite 

 familiar with the underground life of both cities. 

 I asked him whether he had swum the Channel, 



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