at they had not come back.

The following week they repeated the experiment in the laundry. The
course of events was the same. The payment was refused, then the rats
came, devoured and destroyed, stayed a night and left. Nothing was
found. They decided to go and have a conference with Winifred Willowby,
but he could not be located. The two scientists were left to their own
resources. Having no other plausible plan of action, they selected the
small hotel for their next experiment. This time they set a hundred wire
traps and caught several hundred living rats. These they subjected to
every known experiment, and at the end were forced to acknowledge that
all they had learned left them in ignorance as to why the rats came just
for one night in such enormous numbers.

Two months later their employer sent for them. It appeared that he had
just returned from Europe. He listened to their story, smiled kindly at
their perplexity, suggested that they take a vacation and forget about
rats for a while, paid all their bills, and discharged them. He even
went so far as to say that he was uninterested in rats, that it had just
been a passing hobby and that just at present he was working on other
matters. So, he asked them to pass out of his life. But he and Carol
Crawford went into the wilds of Pike County and did some experimenting
on his own account.

Meantime, things were going from bad to worse in New York City. The rat
racketeers were becoming bolder, and started to reach after larger game.
There were rumors that the Pennsylvania Railroad was paying to protect
its terminal and that the Interurban was being bled white to keep the
rats out of the subway. Of course, much of this was rumor and none of it
reached the newspapers, but there is no doubt about the fact that eight
million people were becoming rat-conscious and rat-afraid. It was
growing into a worth-while racket, and those behind it were rapidly
acquiring more than riches; they were growing so powerful that they felt
able to control the city government.

More than one business tried to resist and more than one business awoke
to find that it owned nothing but ruins. Rat protection was worthless
when the enemy came by the hundred thousand and even million. The only
worth-while defense against the multitudinous enemy was the payment of
the weekly tribute, small enough each week, but in the course of the
year taking the profits from most of the firms compelled to pay. With