able
to ourselves. We will sally forth and eat up all the provisions in the
ship, cut holes in the water-casks and let out all the water. We will
commence at the bottom, working our way upwards, so that we shall not
run the risk of having our proceedings discovered. What we can't eat we
will destroy, so that those wretched mortals triumphing in their
strength and intelligence will be deprived of the means of sustaining
life, and must succumb before long to inevitable death; and we whom they
have despised and ill-treated will gain possession of the ship and be
our own masters, and sail in whatever direction we may please. The
kingdom will be our own. We shall be lords of all we survey, and there
will be no one to interfere with our proceedings."

"What about Nero and Pincher?" asked a small rat with a squeaky voice.
"What will become of them, Brother Doublechops?"

"When provisions run short they will to a certainty be killed and eaten
by the bipeds," answered the stout orator. "I shall watch for the
result with intense interest, and have made up my mind to have a nibble
at their livers and other bits of their insides. It will afford me
intense satisfaction to eat a portion of those who have destroyed if not
devoured so many of our race."

"Oh! Brother Doublechops, oh! Brother Doublechops you are talking
nonsense," said the aged orator, who was evidently one of the most
influential rats of the assembly. "If, as I before observed, we were to
kill the captain, officers, and crew, what's to become of the ship
without any one to navigate her? She can't steer a course for harbour,
and would remain tossed by the waves and blown about by the winds till
she met the fate I before described, and went down to the bottom,
carrying us with her."

"Has no one a further proposal to make?" inquired the president.

Nobody answered; even the squeaky voice of the little rat, who looked as
if he had no end of suggestions to offer, was silent. A murmur of
rattish voices filled the air.

"Friends, Romans, citizens, again I ask you all to lend me your ears,"
exclaimed the president, at which all the rats put on a look of profound
attention. "You have heard the proposals offered as well as the answers
made to them. To me, speaking with due deference to the opinion of
others, the proposals appear to be the most insane, foolish, and
impracticable that could have been devised by rattish brains. Here we
are, cut off from all c