XIV.—RATS AS MORALISTS.
The Lord in making the rats is imputed to have done so to have them serve as scavengers for his wandering, wasteful tribes of children. But in our own day, as the majority of us do not wander, nor have wandered continually for the last two or three thousand years or so, and have slapped up many supposedly permanent villages like London, New York, or Paris, the restless, ambitious rat took into his head not to limit himself to such dirty kind of work exclusively. He then formed the resolution, and further carried out the purposes of his creator by taking upon himself the philosophic office of keeping man's pride in check. This he did by literally chipping a large proportion of the gilt off man's earthy grandeur, and by destroying his works and belongings at every possible opportunity, with right hearty good-will and much perseverance. "Therefore," says a writer, "whatever man does, rat always takes a share in the proceedings. Whether it be building a ship, erecting a church, digging a grave, plowing a field, storing a pantry, taking a journey, or planting a distant colony, rat is sure to have something to do in the matter; man and his gear can no more get transplanted from place to place without him, than without the ghost in the wagon that 'flitted too'."