"I"ve made a discovery!" exclaimed I at last, and at my shout the three other rats came eagerly running towards the place where I stood rejoicing by a flask of oil.
"I"ve seen that flask a dozen times," exclaimed one of the Brownies, in a tone of angry disappointment; "I have longed to taste its contents, but how is a rat to get at them?"
Here was a puzzler indeed. But Whiskerandos was ever ready at expedients. With neat dexterity he extracted the stopper; but here the difficulty did not end, for the neck of the bottle was too narrow by far to admit the head of a rat; and the position of the flask, in a wooden box, rendered it impossible to alter its position so as to pour out its contents.
"Mighty little use that flask is to us!" exclaimed one of the Brownies, impatiently.
But my clever rat was not easily discouraged In a moment he had dipped in his long tail, and then whisking it out again, scattered around a fragrant shower of oil!
There was no end to the praises and commendations which Whiskerandos received for this simple device. He took little notice of them, however, and only playfully observed, "It is Ratto who should have thought of this, since nature has furnished black rats with two hundred and fifty distinct rings in their tails, while brown ones have only two hundred."
"Ah, Whiskerandos!" exclaimed I, "this oil is a nice relish to be sure, but my appet.i.te craves something solid;" and I looked piteously up at the jar. The other rats looked up piteously also.
"Let us see what we can do!" cried my spirited companion; and he clambered for the second time up on the shelf on which stood the tantalizing jar. This time he did not even attempt to nibble at the hard polished crockery, he wasted not his energies in any such fruitless endeavour; but, putting his mighty strength to the task, he pushed the whole jar nearer and nearer to the edge of the shelf, then over it, till at length it fell with a tremendous crash which made every one of us leap up high into the air with amazement!
We might have leapt for joy also, for from the broken crockery what a feast of delicious dried fruits rolled forth! With what glee we set to our supper, while Whiskerandos sprang from his shelf, too eager to partake of the tempting repast to take the slower method of climbing.
I must confess that of all pleasures upon earth there is none to a rat like eating; if such be the case with any of the lords of creation, why I can only say that they must be content to be reckoned like rats.
We were in the midst of our feast, our mouths full, and our whiskers merrily wagging, when we were startled by a faint noise at the kitchen door. A stealthy sound, as of human feet moving slowly and cautiously along; a timid hand laid softly on the handle of the door; and then a whispering murmur of voices. We p.r.i.c.ked up our ears and stopped eating.
"I am sure that the noise came from the kitchen;-- listen!" said a timorous voice. So those without listened, and so did we within, when the clock suddenly striking One, made us all start, and so frightened the Brownies, that off they scampered into their hole. Whiskerandos and I retreated some steps, and then remained in an att.i.tude of attention, while again the whispering began.
"Would it not be safer to call in a policeman?"
"No, no,-- my blunderbuss is loaded, and the villains cannot escape.
You are nervous-- go back, Eliza."
"Dearest-- I"ll never leave you to meet the danger alone!"
The handle creaked as it was slowly turned round, and Whiskerandos exclaiming, "We"d better be off!" followed the example of the Brownies.
Strong curiosity made me linger for a moment, as the door was opened inch by inch, and I had a glimpse of what to this day I cannot remember without laughing. One of the lords of the creation slowly advanced through it, robed in a long red dressing-gown, a candle in one hand, a loaded blunderbuss in the other, and with a most ludicrous expression on his pallid face, as though he were making up his mind to kill somebody, but was a little afraid that somebody might kill him instead!
His wife, looking ghastly in her curl-papers with her eyes and mouth wide open in fright, was trying to pull him back, and was evidently terrified to glance round the kitchen, lest some midnight robber should meet her gaze. Away I scudded, my sides shaking with mirth, leaving the broken jar and the scattered fruits to tell their own tale, and wondering with what stories of midnight alarms the valiant husband and his devoted spouse would amuse their family in the morning.
CHAPTER X.
THE WANT OF A DENTIST.
I was glad to see Oddity"s kind ugly face again in our native shed. How much I had to tell him! how much older I now felt than one who had never wandered a hundred yards from his home! Who knows not the pleasure of returning even after a brief absence, full of information, eager to impart it, and sure of a ready and attentive listener? I talked over my adventures to my brother, till any patience but his would have been exhausted; but he was the most patient of rats, quite willing to have all his adventures second-hand, without the slightest wish to become a hero, but ready, without a particle of envy, to admire the exploits of others.
"And how is old Furry?" I asked, when at length I came to the end of my narration. Furry had now taken up his quarters in the warehouse, but sometimes visited our shed.
Oddity looked very grave. "You know," replied he, "that poor Furry had the misfortune some time ago to lose one of his upper front teeth."
"I know it; he struck it out when gnawing at the hoop of a barrel. But I do not see that the misfortune is great; old Furry has other teeth left."
"_That_ is his misfortune," added Oddity.
"How?-- what do you mean?-- what does he complain of,-- losing his teeth or keeping them?"
"Both," said Oddity. I should have thought him joking, but Oddity was never guilty of a joke in his life. "You see," he continued, observing my look of surprise, "that gnawing is necessary to us rats, to keep down the quick growth of our teeth. If they are not constantly rubbing one against another, they soon get a great deal too long for our mouths. As poor old Furry"s upper tooth is gone, of course the one just under it is now out of work, and having nothing else to do, is growing at such a pace, that it is actually forming a circle in his mouth!"
"You don"t say so!" I exclaimed "I have often noticed the strange length of that tooth, but I had no notion of the extent of the evil."
"It has much increased since you left us," sighed Oddity, "and where it will end I really don"t know. The poor fellow is blind, he had no pleasure but in nibbling and chatting, and now his dreadful long tooth is actually locking his jaw."
"Shall I go to see him?" said I.
"Do as you please," replied Oddity. "There is little pleasure in seeing him now, poor fellow."
And so I found when I went. Poor old Furry"s misfortune had by no means sweetened his temper. He was ready to bite any one who approached him, only biting was now out of the question. He could hardly manage to swallow a little meal which Oddity had procured, and certainly took it without a sign of grat.i.tude. One would have thought, by his manner towards the piebald rat, that it was he who had knocked out the unlucky front tooth, instead of having kindly attended to Furry"s wants for so long, and borne with his temper, which was harder. But Oddity was, without a doubt, the most patient and steady of rats. While Bright-eyes, full of fun, made many a joke at the expense of the blind, crabbed old rat, who had been so fond of talking, and now could scarcely utter a squeak-- of eating, and now could not nibble a nut,-- Oddity never thought the sufferings of another the subject for a smile, or the peevishness and infirmities of age any theme for the ridicule of the young. He had been often laughed at himself; that was perhaps the reason why he never gave the same pain to others.
I was really glad to escape back to my shed from the atmosphere of a peevish temper. I was accompanied to it by Oddity.
"And now, dear old rat," said I, when we were alone, "how go on our little ragged friends? What has become of Bob and Billy?"
"They still live, or rather starve, in the old shed," said he; "but now they go out each day together. I expect them here every minute."
"So then they are as poor as ever?" inquired I.
"I have heard something of occasional treats of warm soup at the school, but I don"t think that they get anything certain. I suppose that now and then, when some good folk sit down to a comfortable meal, beside a roaring fire, they just happen to remember that seventy or eighty half-famished children are gathered together in a street near, and send them a welcome supply. But both Bob and Billy have hope now, if they have nothing else; they expect soon to be able to do something for themselves, and to be helped on by the kind friends whom they have found at the school."
"Has Bob brought home any more red handkerchiefs with white spots?"
inquired I.
"Not a rag of one," answered my companion; "but he brings back something which puzzles my brain-- something white, with black marks upon it. He and little Billy sit poring over it by the hour. They don"t eat it, they don"t smell it, they don"t wear it: I can"t make out that it is of any use to them at all; and yet they seem as much pleased, as they study it together, as if it were a piece of Dutch cheese!"
"What are these odd things scattered about the shed?" said I; "I don"t remember seeing them before."
"Ah! I forgot to say the little one is beginning to make baskets, and neat fingers he has about it: it seems quite a pleasure to the child.
The very talk of the boys is growing different now; the elder--"
He stopped at the sound of a distant cough, which became more distressing every minute, till our two poor boys entered the shed, and Bob sank wearily down on the floor.
"Oh! that cough, how it shakes you!" cried Billy.
"Never mind, "twill be over soon," gasped his brother.
I was so much surprised at the change in the boys" appearance, that at first I could hardly believe my eyes. They both looked much whiter than I had seen them before; their hair was cut closer, and brushed to one side, instead of hanging right over their eyes. Neither of the brothers was in rags; the old worn clothes indeed were still there, but neatly patched and mended; some one had given Bob a pair of old shoes, but it was Billy who wore the warm cloak.
"His brother always makes him wear it," whispered Oddity, "except at night, and then it covers them both."
"Now you must have it, Bob; isn"t it comfy?" said the lame child, pressing the cloak round his brother, whose violent cough for the moment prevented his reply, and brought a bright colour to his cheek, which I never had seen there before. "I"ll creep very close to you, Bobby, and then we"ll both have it, you know. There! are you better now?" he said, softly, laying his thin cheek against that of his brother.
"I don"t think I"ll ever get better here." The boy shivered and closed his eyes as he spoke.