r poison nor traps, nor prayers nor candles
burnt to all the saints--nothing would do anything. The more they killed
the more came. And the inhabitants of Hamel began to go to the dogs (not
that THEY were of much use), when one Friday there arrived in the town a
man with a queer face, who played the bagpipes and sang this refrain:

'Qui vivra verra:
Le voila,
Le preneur des rats.'

He was a great gawky fellow, dry and bronzed, with a crooked nose, a
long rat-tail moustache, two great yellow piercing and mocking eyes,
under a large felt hat set off by a scarlet cock's feather. He was
dressed in a green jacket with a leather belt and red breeches, and on
his feet were sandals fastened by thongs passed round his legs in the
gipsy fashion.

That is how he may be seen to this day, painted on a window of the
cathedral of Hamel.

He stopped on the great market-place before the town hall, turned his
back on the church and went on with his music, singing:

'Who lives shall see:
This is he,
The ratcatcher.'

The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague of
Egypt, from which no one could save the town.

The stranger sent word to the counsellors that, if they would make it
worth his while, he would rid them of all their rats before night, down
to the very last.

'Then he is a sorcerer!' cried the citizens with one voice; 'we must
beware of him.'

The Town Counsellor, who was considered clever, reassured them.

He said: 'Sorcerer or no, if this bagpiper speaks the truth, it was he
who sent us this horrible vermin that he wants to rid us of to-day for
money. Well, we must learn to catch the devil in his own snares. You
leave it to me.'

'Leave it to the Town Counsellor,' said the citizens one to another.

And the stranger was brought before them.

'Before night,' said he, 'I shall have despatched all the rats in Hamel
if you will but pay me a gros a head.'

'A gros a head!' cried the citizens, 'but that will come to millions of
florins!'

The Town Counsellor simply shrugged his shoulders and said to the
stranger:

'A bargain! To work; the rats will be paid one gros a head as you ask.'

The bagpiper announced that he would operate that very evening when the
moon rose. He added that the inhabitants should at that hour leave the
streets free, and content themselves with looking out of their windows
at what was passing, and that it would be a pleasant sp