178 



THE RAT 



and he looked for a moment as if he were going to 

 declare that he had, but he thought better of it, 

 and only professed to have crossed from London 

 in a ship. I did not know enough of French 

 geography to question him as to how he made his 

 way from the sewers of London to the sewers of 

 Paris, much as I should like to have done so ; but 

 I did ask him why in the world he had gone mess- 

 ing about in sewers, when he might have lived a 

 clean and healthy life in the country, and he was 

 rather angry, and told me that I need not swagger 

 about being a country gentleman : somebody had 

 to be born in the slums, and honest rats were as 

 common in one place as in the other. I professed 

 myself quite willing to accept his statement, and 

 implored him to keep calm, and to describe to me 

 the life which he had lived. Were there traps, 

 and did the men carry sticks and bring their dogs 

 underground with them ? 



' Yes, there were traps,' he replied — ' cage-traps 

 to catch the rats alive, because they were so big 

 and savage that people were willing to pay a high 

 price for them in order to test the courage of their 

 dogs.' Young gentlemen in London, it appeared, 

 turned the rats loose in their rooms, after rolling 

 up the curtains for fear that they should run up 



