I dived
for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced myself. He
remembered me quite well, shook my chilblains heartily, and invited me
further underground for tea and talk.
It was a nice hole, cramped and damp, but very deep, and with those Bosch
love-tokens thudding away upstairs I felt that the nearer Australia the
better. But the rats! Never before have I seen rats in such quantities;
they flowed unchidden all over the dug-out, rummaged in the cupboards,
played kiss-in-the-ring in the shadows, and sang and brawled behind the old
oak panelling until you could barely hear yourself shout. I am fond of
animals, but I do not like having to share my tea with a bald-headed rodent
who gets noisy in his cups, or having a brace of high-spirited youngsters
wrestle out the championship of the district on my bread-and-butter.
Freddy apologised for them; they were getting a bit above themselves, he
was afraid, but they were seldom dangerous, seldom attacked one unprovoked.
"Live and let live" was their motto. For all that they _did_ get a trifle
_de trop_ sometimes; he himself had lost his temper when he awoke one
morning to find a brawny rat sitting on his face combing his whiskers in
mistake for his own (a pardonable error in the dark); and, determining to
teach them a lesson, had bethought him of his old friend, the noble fert.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25