When the Dog's Asleep
Rats are marvellously cunning, they never fail to seize an opportunity and make the best of it. They are as bold as cunning, and take desperate risks; but no doubt they know their own powers. The cunning and the boldness of rats are made evident when one is seen eating the crumbs of a biscuit beside a sleeping dog. Rats soon find out that where there is a dog in a kennel there will be food—not crumbs only, but an assortment of bones, and many a tit-bit, despised by a fastidious dog, from that comprehensive dish, household scraps. It is strange to watch a rat stealing a feast within a few inches of a sleeping terrier—the very rat for whose blood the terrier has wearied himself by scratching at a hole for the greater part of the day. Should the dog wake up and dash for his enemy, the rat coolly darts beneath the kennel. It is a thousand to one against the dog catching the thief.
