our
enemies. Adding insult to injury, they have, as I have only lately
discovered, designated us in one of their popular dictionaries as
troublesome vermin of the mouse kind. Why should they not have
described us as rodents of graceful form, endowed with wonderful
sagacity and activity to which the smaller animal called the mouse is
allied? These human beings have also the audacity to malign our
character, to insinuate that we are fickle and undependable, besides
being fierce and savage. Thus, when one of their own race changes
sides, they say that the wretched biped has `ratted,' Not content with
abusing us, they make savage war against our race by every cruel mode
they can devise. They chase us with cats and dogs. Not that we care
much for the cats, who seldom venture into our haunts; but those horrid,
keen-scented terriers, are, it must be confessed, justly to be dreaded.
Still more so are those cunning little ferrets which insinuate
themselves into our abodes. The hatred of our enemies is exhibited in
their use. Nowhere are we safe from them. They make their way through
the narrowest crevices, dive down to the lowest depths we can reach,
disturb our domestic happiness, watch for us on our hunting expeditions,
and rout us out of our securest strongholds. This fearful persecution
is originated, aided, and abetted by our malignant persecutors, who,
besides the traps I have already spoken of, even attempt our destruction
by mixing poison in the food they leave in our way. We have only the
melancholy satisfaction of creeping beneath the boardings of their
rooms, there to die, and to allow our decaying bodies to fill the air
with noxious odours. Friends, Romans, countrymen," he went on,
repeating his former curious style of address, "we have met to devise
means to assert our rights among created beings, and to revenge
ourselves for the injuries we have for so many centuries of the world's
history suffered. We are now decidedly in the majority on board this
ship. We hold possession of her chief strongholds. Her captain,
officers, and crew exist only on sufferance; so then, brother rats and
sister rats, young and old, as it is our glorious privilege to belong to
a free republic, express your opinions without fear. It is my business
to note and record them."

Directly the speaker ceased, even for a moment, the rats began frisking
and whisking about, biting at one another's tails and leaping over one
another,