Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/100

 cellar door for the purpose of sneaking in on the first opportunity, and lapping up the drippings from the beer cask. I do not mention this habit of hers in praise of the species, but merely to show how almost human some of them are. If the transmigration of souls is a fact, this animal was certainly qualifying most rapidly for a Christian, for her vanity was only second to her love of drink. Whenever she caught a particularly big rat, she would bring it up into the room where we were all sitting, lay the corpse down in the midst of us, and wait to be praised. Lord! how the girls used to scream.

Poor rats! They seem only to exist so that cats and dogs may gain credit for killing them, and chemists make a fortune by inventing specialities in poison for their destruction. And yet there is something fascinating about them. There is a weirdness and uncanniness attaching to them. They are so cunning and strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, so secret. They swarm in deserted houses, where the broken casements hang rotting to the crumbling walls, and the doors swing creaking on their rusty hinges. They know the sinking ship, and leave her, no one knows how or whither. They whisper to each other in their hiding-places, how a doom will fall upon the hall, and the great name die forgotten. They do fearful deeds in ghastly charnel-houses.

No tale of horror is complete without the rats. In