214 



THE RAT 



She was so angry that she bit me through the leg, 

 and then sulked for days. The latter part of her 

 retort I did not mind, for she was a big, unpleasant 

 female ; but the bite was very painful for some 

 time, and turned me temporarily into a ' hopper.' 

 I believe that I might have had a little h printed 

 on my card, but it was hardly worth the expense, 

 as we w^ere not calling much just then. The rule 

 also is that you must have been disabled in fair 

 fight, and I could hardly call the fight a fair one, 

 because she happened to be bigger than I was, and 

 1 knew that I should get the worst of it if I pro- 

 longed the quarrel. Also, it is necessary to pro- 

 duce evidence, and I hardly liked to try to claim 

 my little h on the grounds of a wife-bite. Now that 

 I have got a well-earned capital letter, I am sure 

 that I acted wisely ; but I was tempted for a moment 

 to try to pose before the world as ' half a hero.' 



My bad time, as I was remarking, came in 

 February, and I was compelled to eat many 

 strange things to keep the wolf of starvation at 

 bay. The snow lay so thick outside the plantation 

 for several weeks that I dare not venture out, and 

 I had to keep myself alive by gnawing the bark 

 off the little saplings, just like a silly rabbit. It 

 was tasteless stuff, but I contrived to keep a certain 



