“Well, what is the favor?” asked another old rat.
“It is to gnaw a few ropes in two. Come, hurry and decide for time flies, which makes the time all the shorter for your feast. Think of it, cakes, pies, pudding, meats, cheese of many kinds, all for the eating, and no danger! Will you or will you not come?”
“Yes, we will come. Now lead the way to where the ropes are you want chewed.”
And I know even the men and the girl in the moon would have laughed had they chanced to look down and had seen a big white goat leading an army of rats into a circus tent.
When the animals saw Billy coming with the rats they were too astonished to speak, and before they had time to ask any questions the rats were gnawing the ropes like mad.
“Billy, for plans and strategy you certainly take the cake!” said the elephant. “You should have been human. With your brain you would have made a wonderful major general for some army.”
In a jiffy the ropes fell apart and then the rats attacked the hole the elephant had made in the tent and helped him to tear it. When the hole was big enough for them to squeeze through, Billy said:
“Now follow me, rats and animals, and I will lead you to the festive board where all the goodies are spread out for you to feast on them.”
Once inside the tent every animal and rat tasted the things that looked most tempting to him. The leaf eaters ate the salad; the meat eaters, the ham and cold tongue; the rats ate the different cheeses and cakes; but the giraffe, being thirsty, was looking for a drink of water when he spied the ice-cream freezer. While nosing around he accidentally knocked the lid off, so he stuck his tongue in to taste it. Being hot and thirsty, it tasted good and felt cool to his throat. He was thus amusing himself when Billy found him. He would lick up a mouthful and then stretch his neck up as high as it would go and shut his eyes to enjoy the cool, sweet stream running down his long neck. He called to the elephant to come and try it, which he did but the elephant did not like it. He much preferred the salted nuts and went from place to place eating the nuts in the individual dishes.
The camel liked the sweet cakes and so it was that on that long table set for a hundred fifty persons, each animal found something to his taste. And those greedy animals and rats did not leave until there was not a morsel of food left and the plates were licked as clean as if they had been washed.