| Chap. | Page. | |
| [I.] | The Family of Rats | 9 |
| [II.] | A Clap-trap Discovery | 15 |
| [III.] | Poorer than Rats | 19 |
| [IV.] | How I made a Friend | 26 |
| [V.] | How Bob met with an Adventure | 33 |
| [VI.] | How I visited the Zoological Gardens | 38 |
| [VII.] | Finding Relations | 43 |
| [VIII.] | How I heard of Old Neighbours | 51 |
| [IX.] | How we found a Feast | 59 |
| [X.] | The want of a Dentist | 67 |
| [XI.] | A Removal | 74 |
| [XII.] | A New Road to Fame | 79 |
| [XIII.] | How I set out on my Voyage | 86 |
| [XIV.] | A Terrible Word | 94 |
| [XV.] | First View of St. Petersburg | 103 |
| [XVI.] | A Russian Kitchen | 109 |
| [XVII.] | A Ramble over St. Petersburg | 118 |
| [XVIII.] | How we were Transported | 125 |
| [XIX.] | A Storm and its Consequences | 132 |
| [XX.] | Catch him—Dead or Alive! | 137 |
| [XXI.] | A new kind of Watch-dog | 146 |
| [XXII.] | The Farmer and his Bride | 153 |
| [XXIII.] | A Peep through the Roses | 163 |
[ THE RAMBLES OF A RAT.]
[ CHAPTER I.]
THE FAMILY OF RATS.
My very earliest recollection is of running about in a shed adjoining a large warehouse, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Poplar, and close to the River Thames, which thereabouts is certainly no silver stream.
A merry life we led of it in that shed, my seven brothers and I! It was a sort of palace of rubbish, a mansion of odds and ends, where rats might frolic and gambol, and play at hide-and-seek, to their hearts’ content. We had nibbled a nice little way into the warehouse above mentioned; and there, every night, we feasted at our ease, growing as sleek and plump as any rats in the United Kingdom.