er, making eyes at
me all the time they vanished down her throat. This done, she went off
waltzing round and round the room, till she popped up the chimney. I
cannot now remember one-tenth of the sensations which presented
themselves to my imagination, showing, as I opine, that the stomach is
in intimate connexion with the brain. Among others, by-the-bye, I
fancied I was wandering about the streets of Liverpool, looking into
cookshops and eating-houses, where people were engaged devouring food,
which they in the most provoking manner held up to me on the ends of
their forks, and instead of allowing me to take it, put it down their
own throats.

Again all was a blank. Silence reigned around; when suddenly a faint
light streamed across the space before me, and I saw armies of rats
tripping from all directions and assembling not five feet from my nose.
Over the casks and bales and packages they streamed in countless
numbers, whisking their tails, leaping and tumbling over each other;
some making somersaults, others playing at leapfrog. Numbers climbed up
from beneath the kelson; some came from the fore part of the ship,
others from aft. "Why, she must be perfectly overrun with the brutes,"
I thought. "I wonder how any human being can exist on board. It's
surprising that they should never molest me." They were merry fellows.
I could not help laughing at the curious antics they played.

Presently I heard a voice shout "Silence!" A buck rat had seated
himself on the top of a plank, which I had not before observed. Much to
my surprise he held a note-book in his hand, and opening it began to
read. He was too keen-sighted, I suppose, to require spectacles, though
how he managed to see in that light I could not tell.

"Silence!" he again cried; and he then shouted at the top of his voice,
which was somewhat squeaky for an orator, "Friends, Romans,
countrymen,--Lend me your ears."

I thought this a very odd way for a rat to commence an oration. As he
spoke, all the rats, cocking up their ears, sat on their tails--some on
the tops of the casks, others round and below me.

"Thank you for the attention you seem inclined to pay me, brother rats,"
he continued. "I wish to impress on your minds the serious fact that
we, as a race, have been maligned, abused, hunted, and ill-treated in
all varieties of ways. We have had traps set for us, and although we
are not often caught in them, it serves to exhibit the malice of