“Of course not,” said the rat. “So, you see, it has not taken a very long time to find out something which I can do, but you can’t. Well, you are ready now, so come along. You will be able to follow me, for I will pat the floor just in front of you with my tail,—and that is another thing which you couldn’t do, even if you were to try for a very long time.”
“Because I haven’t got a tail,” said Tommy Smith.
“That is one reason,” the rat answered; “but you can’t be sure you could do it even if you had one. It might be too short, you know. Now, come along.” Pat, pat, pat. “Do you hear?”
Tommy Smith heard quite plainly, and he followed the rat through the door, and down the stairs, and right into the kitchen. The fire was still alight, as the rat had said. There were some sticks lying in the fender, and Tommy Smith put some of them on to make it burn up. Then there was a blaze of light, and he could see the rat sitting up on his hind legs, and holding his front paws close to the bars so as to warm them.
“Now,” the rat said, “we will begin at once. I promised to show you that I could do some clever things as well as the frog and toad. Do you see that bottle of oil standing there on the dresser?”
“Oh yes, I see it,” said Tommy Smith.
“Well,” the rat went on, “I should like to taste a little of it. But how do you suppose I am to get at it?”
“Why, by knocking it over,” said Tommy Smith at once. “That is the only way that I can see.”
“Fie!” said the rat. “That may be your way of drinking oil, but I should be ashamed to make such a mess. I am a rat, and I like to do things in a proper manner.”
Tommy Smith felt a little offended at this, and he said, “I never knock a bottle over when I want to get oil or anything else out of it, for I am a little boy, and have a pair of hands to lift it up with, and pour what is in it out of it. But you have no hands, and you cannot get your head into it, because the neck is too narrow, and your tongue is not long enough to reach down to where the oil is. So I don’t see what you can do, unless you knock it over.”