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THE PASSING OF THE BLACK RAT

[Note.—The old English black rat, for some three hundred years predominant in this country, is now well-nigh extinct. He has been superseded, some think exterminated, by the brown Hanoverian rat, a more powerful and disreputable species, which made its appearance in the course of the eighteenth century.]

The black rat sat back on his haunches, pricked up his ears, and listened. It was something different to the faint lapping wash of the sewer; different to the dull hum of the traffic. It was an uncanny, unfamiliar scratching.

Every rat knows the scratching of his relations; but the black rat had no relations.

Six weeks ago there had been at least two others of his kind in existence—the one he had fought with, and the one he had most unsuccessfully fought for. As a matter of fact, he had crawled away from that encounter to die. Instead of dying, he had recovered. That his rival was in reality the better rat he could not allow. Position is everything in the rat duello, and position had not favoured him.

After a series of disastrous frontal attacks, he had limped behind the old corn-bin, with half his mouth torn away, and his front paws mangled and useless. He had bowed his head and waited sullenly for the coup de grace. But the coup de grace never came. There had been a diversion in the rear, and into the cause of that diversion he had not troubled to inquire.

He had seen neither him nor her since, and, until he had recovered from his wounds, had hardly felt his loneliness. For a wounded rat, loneliness is normal and necessary. Of late, as he sniffed dubiously round the old familiar corners, the sense of desolation had forced itself upon him.

He recalled, dimly, the few weeks before his misfortune. Every day the number of the tribe had lessened. First went the patriarch, white about the muzzle, grizzled all over, tottering and feeble, but still of eminent distinction—the black rat does not coarsen with age—then, one by one, with fearless inconsequence, the younger ones; lastly, save two, his own contemporaries.

The scratching seemed to get louder. The black rat glided, like a shadow, towards it. It sounded from the bottom of the door.

FIRST THE PATRIARCH, WHITE ABOUT THE MUZZLE, GRIZZLED ALL OVER, BUT STILL OF EMINENT DISTINCTION.

Three sides of the cellar—for a hundred years the cellar had been the rats’ stronghold—were solid masonry. The fourth side was a wooden partition. At one corner of this stood the door, close-fitted to its sill and frame, and shrouded in cobwebs, which, in rats’ memory, had never parted. Along the wall opposite ran a six-inch shelf, and, at the extremity of this shelf, where the fittings entered the brickwork, was the entrance of the run.

Generations of rats had used that run. Its sides were smooth and polished as a metal tube. Here it was narrower, there wider, but throughout its length it was free and unimpeded.

For the most part it lay between wall and wainscot. At times it seemed to pierce the masonry itself. Midway in the ascent the path of least resistance had been towards the outer wall. Two round holes pierced its surface—a brick’s length dividing them. One can understand the making of the first hole, but the making of the second? Fifteen feet below resounded the busy traffic of the city. Did two tunnels converge by chance? did they converge by design? or was the second made by some colossal rat, stretched at full length, and trusting his life to his superhuman hearing? I can only state the facts. I do not pretend to explain them.

From the second hole the run passed into the masonry once more, zigzagged upwards into the storeroom, and ended.

From the storeroom there were countless exists—down the gutter into the courtyard (a short cut to the shambles), beneath the flooring to the scullery, and thence along the drain-pipe to the great sewer, through the ventilator on to the roof—anywhere, everywhere.

The scratching was certainly louder. The black rat was stepping very delicately, but a slippery corn-husk shot from underneath his foot, and with the rustle of the corn-husk the scratching ceased.

Nothing but a rat could have heard that; it was certainly a rat, but who?

For ten minutes he waited, listening. Then he stole forward, until the points of his whiskers brushed lightly against the door. Instantly there was a movement on the far side—a four-footed movement. Caution against such cunning seemed superfluous. He boldly forced his nose between door and flooring and sniffed; but only for a second, for his nose had gone farther than he meant; the bottom of the woodwork had been gnawed through until it was a bare half-inch thick all along its length. He drew back with a jerk, and waited another ten minutes, staring at the door and thinking.

The silence on the far side grew unendurable. The black rat whisked round, and rushed madly for the run. He gained the shelf by a beautiful swinging leap, easy and silent as a cat’s.

HE STOLE FORWARD UNTIL THE POINTS OF HIS WHISKERS BRUSHED LIGHTLY AGAINST THE DOOR.

For the first few yards, between brickwork and wainscot, the run was clear enough; but, as it turned upwards to the floor above, something seemed unfamiliar.

The light, which had always faintly shimmered from the hole in the outer wall, was gone. As he drove forward headlong, he bruised his nose against the cause of its disappearance. The wall had been repaired with concrete. It was utterly ungnawable, and he slowly retraced his steps to the cellar. He was just in time to hear the scratching recommence.

HE TRIED TO STEADY HIMSELF BY NIBBLING AT A STRAY CORN-EAR.

It drew closer and closer. It got upon his nerves. He tried to steady himself by nibbling at a stray corn-ear. He dropped it before he had fairly tasted it, and crept forward to the door once more. There was more than one unknown at work. At times a light quiver ran the whole length of the bottom ledge.

From a rat standpoint, it was the worst position conceivable. That attack was impending was certain; it was equally certain that retreat was impossible. Desperation, rather than bravado, determined him to reverse the positions. In one spot the wood had been fined to a quarter of an inch. Light filtered through, and cast a dull red shadow on the floor. It was at that spot that he flung himself. As he touched it, every other sound ceased. He had the field to himself, and he worked it to the best of his ability. The splinters flew before his chisel teeth; he wrenched, and scratched, and tore. Before five minutes were gone, the flimsy wooden screen had been transformed into a neat three-cornered hole.

He thrust his head forward, and stared with all his eyes. At first he could distinguish nothing. The far side of the partition was, in comparison with his recent surroundings, brilliantly lighted. Gradually the form of the enemy shaped itself before him. It was certainly a rat, but what a rat! Until his muzzle had shot through the opening, it had been facing him, waiting and watching. Now it had leapt backwards, and presented a three-quarter rear view.

IT WAS THE MOST VULGAR, ILL-CONDITIONED BEAST HE HAD EVER SET EYES ON.

It was the most vulgar, ill-conditioned beast he had ever set eyes on. Its muzzle was coarse and blunted; its ears were half concealed in coarse-grained, unkempt hair; its tail, instead of tapering, like his own, to an elegant infinity, was short and stumpy; its eyes were, to say the least of it, insignificant. But its colour! a dirty, nondescript, khaki brown!

The sight of it was enough, and he drove at it full tilt.

Appearances were undoubtedly against the brown rat, but it knew something of tactics. With a lightness, such as one could hardly have expected, it swung to one side, and, before his brilliant charge could take effect, had got its back to the wall. He had made the same mistake again—the mistake of brainless breeding all the world over. It mattered not whether he approached from front, or right, or left, the same whirling flail of fore-paws was ready for him. He leapt clean over its head, and was flung back—by the brickwork. Whichever way he tried he had only half a foe to aim at. Still he never flinched, happy in the conviction that blood must tell.

Blood might have told against a single enemy. Against a score it availed little. And a full score were advancing. The ungainly, stubby forms seemed to rise from every crevice in the floor.

They came very slowly at first—a dirty cohort of khaki Hanoverians; their muzzles uplifted and quivering at the scent of blood, their beady eyes fixed seemingly on vacancy, but really on himself. He felt them coming, and, for a moment, paused in his attack. The whole group might, save for the restless nostrils, have been carved in stone; the duellists eyeing each other warily, the scavenger ring waiting on events; but the whiskers of each one trembled, and gave the whole group life.

It was the watchman’s tread that broke the spell. The black rat knew that tread well enough. He knew every tread in the warehouse; but to the invaders it was unfamiliar. Before the footsteps had resounded twice, he was left alone; the host had vanished as quickly as it came.

The black rat retreated in good order, and established himself once more in a corner of the cellar. It was a mistake, but he wanted time to recover himself, and time to think.

Of the world on the far side of the partition he knew nothing, but he realized that there was a world. Should he make a rush for it before the enemy had regained courage? Even so, where should he rush to? Was he likely to find an exit amid altogether strange surroundings? Could he block the hole? Rats had done such things before now, but it was only deferring the evil hour, and what time would he have to do it in? The question was answered for him. The echo of the watchman’s step had barely ceased, before the hole at the base of the door was, for a moment, obscured.

They came in jerky disorder. First a young, loose-limbed stripling. He was barely out before he was back again, throwing up the pink soles of his hind feet, and flicking the woodwork with his belated tail. Then a kaleidoscopic succession of suspicious faces. The light danced on the floor as each thrust his neighbour aside, thrust his head like lightning through the opening, and as quickly withdrew it. They were masters of scouting, these brown barbarians. Sometimes one, bolder or younger than the rest, would steal a foot within the cellar. Sometimes, for minutes together, all would be quiet, the light patch on the floor the only thing amiss. The black rat never moved his eyes from that light.

It was an hour before the chieftain himself appeared. He squeezed through the opening, but, for all his bulk, came quickly. Once clear, he dropped upon his haunches, and knit his fists before him. The position showed him at his best. Crouched or in motion, the clumsy angles of his body were forced into relief. As he sat back, the curves softened, and, as far as brown rat could be, he was imposing. For some moments he sat immovable, facing the darkness, then he turned, and, with one eye always fixed behind him, passed slowly out of sight.

There was a long silence after this. The light patch on the floor seemed to grow in intensity. By its dull reflection, the black rat could just distinguish his own whiskers. It fascinated him. He stole halfway across the floor towards it, and paused. As he paused, it was blotted out once more.

THE POSITION SHOWED HIM AT HIS BEST.

He was being watched. Before he was back in his corner, three of the enemy were through the breach. Five more followed. Then in quick confusion a dozen. Then a dozen more. The Hanoverian army was spreading its wings.

Their actual number he never knew. Perhaps, for the credit of his family, it was as well. Reflection would assuredly have put resistance, and even hope, out of the question. As it was, he came forward with absolute indifference. His breeding again stood him in good stead. Of all the host he was the least uneasy. In the middle of the floor he stopped abruptly, confronting the situation. Fifty rats were in the cellar now, and there was not a rustle among them.

He had calculated exactly where to stop. It was a foot beyond the normal take-off of the grown rat. He flung his head round, put all the force he possessed into his hind legs, and leapt, upwards and backwards, towards the shelf. He caught it with his fore-paws, scrambled on to it, and, for the moment, was safe. He was only just quick enough. As his eyes turned, the brown rats had rushed forward, and, even as he clutched the ledge, he heard them pattering against the wall.

The floor below was a raging sea of rats; rats leaping over one another, jostling, biting, tearing. To the silence of a moment before had succeeded a babel of shrieks and hisses. But there were no jumpers among them like himself. He passed quietly along the ledge above them, through the entrance of the run, and up to its blocked extremity. There he braced his back against the concrete and waited.

He waited for three days, his muzzle grounded, his eyes peering into the darkness, his every sense alert. He ate nothing, he drank nothing—to all appearance he never slept.

On the fourth day, he crept feebly halfway towards the cellar. Privation was beginning to tell on him. His only hope was that the invaders might have retired.

For the first few yards it almost seemed as if it was so. Neither in the air nor on the ground could he detect the slightest vibration; but, as he turned a sharp corner, the hope was dispelled. The whole run quivered with the stealthy whisper of rats’ footsteps. Faint squeaks and whimperings echoed along it. The cellar was evidently still occupied in force; he was cornered between starvation and insuperable odds. Yet there might be a scrap of food this side of the cellar. He stole forward until another turn revealed the ledge. In the centre of the ledge were three brown rats. The farther one was cleaning itself, but the other two were feeding, and, at the sight of the food, he lost all prudence. He was upon them before he was perceived. The two dropped their provender, leapt blindly forward, and fell clumsily to the floor below, but the third slid down the junction of the walls.

The black rat realized what that meant. As he turned his head, he saw his retreat cut off. Two more had scaled the corner behind him. He swung about to face them, girded himself to charge, and, instead of charging, stopped dead.

THE FARTHER ONE WAS CLEANING ITSELF.

For the first time in his life he knew what fear was. Before him were his immediate adversaries; his quick ears caught the crumbling of plaster behind him. Rats were mounting that corner also.

Five feet below lay the floor. Its surface glistened with shifting beads of light—light from rats’ eyes.

He was between the devil and the deep sea—the floor was the sea, and the devil was assuredly advancing towards him. Never before had he set eyes on such a beast—ten inches from head to tail, brawny, misshapen, mangy, a veritable Caliban of rats.

A VERITABLE CALIBAN OF RATS.

The position was hopeless. All he could do was to die game. Caliban had crept within a foot of him, and was pulling himself into position. But he was too slow. Before he had raised his clumsy fore-paws from the ground, the black rat’s teeth had met in his throat. His huge frame quivered for a moment, staggered, and lurched heavily off the shelf. He carried his comrade with him.

First blood! what matter whose? Caliban lay where he fell, his eyes slowly glazing. The eyes round him caught the reflection from his throat. He was the hero of a hundred fights, and the puniest ratling had its share. The floor was for the moment the centre of attraction.

Had it not been for the chieftain, the black rat might have regained the run. But the chieftain had foreseen events. As Caliban fell he had clambered up, and was now blocking the entrance.

He was grounded on his haunches, with uplifted paws, ready for anything. The black rat drove at him, and was hurled backwards. Among rats the chieftain is, of necessity, pluperfect master of defence. Again and again he parried the attack, until Caliban was disposed of.

Then, in the middle of his rush, the black rat heard once more the stealthy footstep in his rear, paused, half turned, missed his footing, and fell.

Yet he accounted for four of those below, which made five altogether.

“THE FOX’S TRICKS ARE MANY; ONE IS ENOUGH FOR THE URCHIN”

(Old Greek Proverb)

Rain, and rain, and rain. For three days in succession the sun had defaulted. Yet he had been doing his best behind the storm-clouds. That very morning he had forced one straggling beam well through. It had been completely thrown away, for every living thing was snugly tucked up under cover. Now, as his time was getting short, he made one last despairing effort.

Westward, the sky was banked with purple nimbus, towering in gloomy magnificence aloft, but fined to nothingness on the horizon. The sun saw his chance, and took it. As the storm-cloud was borne a trifle upwards, he flashed his dying radiance beneath it.

At first the brightness was intolerable. The rain-drenched leaves were bathed in liquid fire; the river surface gleamed like molten metal; the undergrowth that fringed the bank became a tangled web of dazzling light-points.

The effort was of short duration, yet, before the sun had sunk, the things that loved the river had caught his message.

THE WATER-RAT CAME FROM A HOLE FIVE FEET ABOVE THE RIVER-LEVEL.

The cloud-bank lifted sullenly, and dispersed. Out of the east came a soft summer breeze, stealing silently across the valley, and tilting the balance of each dripping leaf. So the great drops of moisture slipped off them to swell the river, and the drying of the earth commenced.

That is what brought them all out together.

The water-rat came from a hole five feet above the river-level. An overhanging grass-tuft masked her exit. As a rule, she used the back way—a gently sloping tunnel which led from nest to stream. But to-night it was very still. She padded quietly to the water’s edge, slid through the reeds that bordered it, and sat upon a silted crescent of mud that lay on their far side. She always sat there to commence with. From the bank she was invisible; up stream and down she could see for fifty yards, and the pith of the reed-stem, of all things in her menu most charming, lay ready to her orange-tinted teeth.

The noctules came from the hollow in the old chestnut. Twenty of them lived there together, because it was a convenient, roomy hollow. No one knows how it started—perhaps the wood-peckers could tell you—but rain had certainly finished its excavation. The entrance was some thirty feet above the ground—dank, noisome, and forbidding; the end was near the roots.

Of course the old chestnut was dying; but that did not concern the noctules. Each evening they crawled up to prove the weather; each evening, of late, they had shambled back again into the gloomy depths, cannoning awkwardly against each other, snarling and grumbling. The temper of bats is uncertain, and hunger does not improve it.

But to-night it was better. One by one the ghoulish muzzles emerged, peered into the darkness, and were satisfied; then the clumsy, ill-balanced bodies, entangled in loose-folded leathern cerements—the noctule’s wing-spread measures a full foot; lastly, the webbed curving triangle of feet and tail.

THE NOCTULES CAME FROM THE HOLLOW OF THE OLD CHESTNUT.

Each, as it blundered free, clung, for a space, head downwards to the bark, then slacked the grip of its ten toes, unhooked its thumbs, dropped, and flew. Never was flight more graceful, never more perfectly controlled. For fear of the swallows, the summer beetles fly by choice at twilight; even then they must needs fly low, for the noctule never misses, and the crunch of his teeth in a beetle’s horny back is all he knows of music.

The stoat came from a tree which was even more decrepit than the chestnut. It had been an elm once. For four centuries it had defied the elements, towering full fifty feet in rugged, imperial grandeur. The elements had outstayed it. All that remained was a caverned stump, whose jagged summit pointed, like an accusing finger, to the sky.

But, from a stoat standpoint, the stump was unsurpassable. There were three exits from the hollow base. Up the shaft there was yet another. Thick brambles fringed it on every side, and in those brambles were many birds’ nests. The stump was an ideal nursery; as such the stoat had employed it. He had left to its friendly protection his family of six, with a young rabbit to keep them occupied. He, himself, was now in quest of frogs.

The hedgehog bore on his back clear tokens of his last retreat. A dozen withered leaves were clinging to his spines. The nearest pile of such lay heaped against the hen-house. The hedgehog footed through the knotgrass slowly, grubbing with his snout to right and left of him. Sometimes, when cover failed, he broke into a bow-legged run.

The squirrel came from high up in the beech tree—the second fork from the top. There he had built what he called a nest, but what humans, with greater nicety of diction, call a drey. Speak not of squirrel’s “nest” to sportsmen; to speak of fox’s “burrow” were hardly less heinous. The drey was eminently satisfactory, for, in the summer months, it was completely hidden. Yet three days inside it had been more than sufficient for the squirrel. He was cold, hungry, and cramped in every limb. To quicken the blood within him, he flung himself at lightning speed from bough to bough, from tree to tree, up and down the branches, in and out the maze of dripping foliage, until his every hair was tipped with a raindrop, and he was almost weary. Then he paused a moment for breath and shook himself, dog-fashion.

The mole’s uneasy, crimson-pointed muzzle came from a hole right on the water’s edge. He was feeling for the water. Last night the swollen river had forced its way a yard into his run, and he had blundered headlong into it. Swimming is easy to the mole, but swimming in an inch-wide tube is risky. So, to-night, he was cautious. It might have been fine all day, or it might have been wet, for all he knew.

The grass-snake seemed to come up from the river bottom. His head suddenly parted the water beneath the old pollard, and he swam slowly across the stream, craning his neck before him. The pollard was inwardly rotten to the core—a snug retreat for snakes, to which the only entrance was a water-way.

The dormouse came from halfway up the hazel, and the wood-mouse came from its roots. They, too, had been three days weather bound; but they were not hungry. Each had its winter store to draw upon.

The moths and caterpillars and beetles, came from everywhere—crannies in the brickwork, joints in the palings, crevices in the bark, from neat-rolled envelope of leaf, from hollowed shelter of reed-stem, from pigmy burrows in the ground.

It was the hedgehog who started it. The hedgehog has a keen sense of humour, and, for that reason, he loves an argument.

“I will back my spines,” said he, “against any means of defence in the country.” He curled himself into a forbidding spiky ball, and rolled slowly down the bank towards the water. On the very brink he stopped and uncurled himself. “Or any means of offence,” he added.

This was too much.

“Spines!” sneered the stoat. “Spines might be some use if you had any pace behind them. Where would they come in against a hare?”

IT WAS THE HEDGEHOG WHO STARTED IT.

“Spines would be awkward in the shallows,” murmured the water-rat, as she swam quietly over to the far shore, keeping half an eye on the stoat, who was also something of a swimmer.

“Spines!” squeaked the noctule from the safe height of a hundred feet. “Why load yourself with spines? Why not fly like me?”

“Spines!” shouted the squirrel. “A pretty mess you’d make of it with spines up here. Do you think every one spends their life grubbing after ground beetles?”

“Spines!” purred the moths. “We gave up spines at quite an early stage. Haven’t you finished moulting, hedgehog?”

“Spines!” snapped the trout. “Give me a good set of fins.”

Now this was exactly what the hedgehog had foreseen. As I have said before, he had a keen sense of humour.

“I am willing to hear you all,” said he.

So, because of his pleistocene lineage, and because of his popularity (the comedian is always the more popular candidate), and because he had started the discussion, he was voted to the chair.

THE NOCTULE SPOKE FIRST; HE OPENED HIS MOUTH AS THOUGH HE WOULD EAT THE WORLD.

The noctule spoke first. He leant his arm against the roughened bark, hooked his thumb-nail into a crevice, and opened his mouth as though he would eat the world. He was not beautiful, and his voice was three octaves above F in alt. What reached the audience below was somewhat on these lines—

“I and my kin are the only mammals that fly. Therefore I am superior to the hedgehog. Flying is the best state of all. Even the humans do their poor best to fly. Every part of me is modified for flight. My knees bend the wrong way so as to better stretch my wing-membranes. My tail serves as a rudder, and in the hollow pouch about it I can trap a beetle, ay, and carry him where I will. My sense of touch is the most delicate in all the world. I never dash myself, like blundering bird, against a wire. If you would know the secret, look at the trembling bristles on my muzzle, look at the earlets within my ears, look at the sensitive wing-membrane between my fingers. No quiver in the air escapes me. I have the sixth sense of the blind, and yet I see.”

Next spoke the stoat, the swash-buckler. He cleared his throat with a short, rasping bark, glared round him, and began—

“I am the only flesh-eater among you all,” said he. The hedgehog’s smile broadened, but he said nothing. “Therefore I have bigger game to tackle than any of you. Therefore I am better armed. Scores of bats I have eaten in my time. I could climb your chestnut if I cared to, noctule, and eat the colony. I would, if you were not so evil-smelling.” (This from the stoat!) “Scores of water-rats have I eaten, too. Look at my long, lithe body. What burrow is too small for it? Look at my teeth. What rodent has a chance against them? I fear nothing, not even man himself. I can swim, I can run, I can climb, I can hunt by scent, and I am cunning as a fox. From my fur, when I am dead, comes the imperial ermine. Would you pit yourself against me, hedgehog?”

NEXT SPOKE THE STOAT, THE SWASH-BUCKLER.

“I WOULD,” SAID THE SQUIRREL.

“I would,” said the squirrel. Like the bats, he was some way off the ground; also he had mapped up a clear course of forty yards among the tree-tops, so he spoke recklessly. “The stoat is an amateur climber.” (“Wait till I get to your nursery!” snarled the stoat.) “He has no idea of taking cover. A treed stoat against a human is doomed. Look at his black-smudged tail—only a trifle better than a weasel’s. It reminds me of my summer moult—but it’s worse; and, in the summer, even I must trust more to my hands and feet. I, the most skilful gymnast in the country, save only the marten, and there are too few of them to count. Give me my winter parachute, and see me then. Who can thread the woods like me? From end to end I fly, skimming the tree-tops and never touching ground. Yet, if the fancy takes me, I can cover land or water faster than any stoat. From my fur, when I am dead, comes the camel-hair brush.”

Next came the dormouse. “Sleep is the best defence of all,” he said. “Sleep and being very small indeed, and never coming out except after sundown, and having great big eyes, so that you can see things like stoats long before they see you. Offence I know nothing of, unless it’s eating beetles.”

After him the wood-mouse. “Give me a good burrow underground,” said he. “Make it among branching roots, with half a dozen entrances and exits, and I defy the weasel, let alone the stoat. But in the winter, when cover is scanty, sleep and a store of nuts is best of all. Beans are no good—they rot away. Earth-stored nuts, tight packed, are the sweetest things I know.”

“What of summer?” said the hedgehog.

“Weight for weight,” said the mouse, “I can tackle anything that moves. As for voles and house-mice, I can fight two at once. When I am giving much away, I like my burrow handy.”

TWO FIELDS AWAY YOU CAN SEE MY FORTRESSES.

“WHO TALKS OF BURROWS,” SAID THE MOLE.

“Who talks of burrows?” said the mole. “Where is there tunnel-builder like myself? Two fields away you can see my fortresses. You can see them plainly, tunnelled maze and rounded nest and all. Some prying human has turned his vacant mind to nature-study, and made a clumsy section of a pair. Look at each in turn. Mark the one tunnel that leads upward to the nest, mark the two galleries that surround it, mark that they wind in a spiral, and are not joined by shafts at intervals. That would so weaken the surroundings as to leave the nest an easy prey to scratching weasel. Why is the spiral made? To cheat inquiry; a dozen tunnels join it from the run; from it are a dozen exits to the surrounding field. One tunnel only leads into the nest. Only the moles know that one. Alone I did it, save for my wife, who hindered me. Alone I moved two hundredweight of earth. Nor do my qualities end here. Were I fifty times as big, I would be lord of creation. Where can you find fiercer courage than mine; where, bulk for bulk, more mighty strength? What monster, think you, would an elephant, built for burrowing, be? For my weight, I am the strongest thing that lives. One creature, and one only, approaches me; that is the mole-cricket. Let him speak for himself.”

THE MOLE-CRICKET TURNED UP FROM NOWHERE IN PARTICULAR.

The mole-cricket turned up from nowhere in particular, and his voice was the tinkling of a silver bell. It would have taken a score of him to make a mole.